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PART 11
CHAPTER - I
THE EAST SYRIAN CHURCH UNDER THE ARABS AND
THE CALIPHATE
l'he Roman imperii~l order (Edict of Milan) in the fourth century
brought about a dramatic change in the status of the Christianity in the
Mediterranean world. A new period in ecclesial life opened up. Everywhere
in the Mediterranean basin, the Christian faith came to dominate in religious
and cultural life. The repercussions of the changes were eventually felt by
Christians who lived far beyond the borders of the Roman empire.
With a fir!n hierarchical organization, the East Syrian Church began
to look around for oppoi-tunities for expansion and had flourishing missions all
over Asia. Murray suggests that Arbil coulti well have been an independent
focus for such missionary thrust in all directions throughout the Persian
empire'. The frontiers of Persia. mainly looking eastwards laid open before
the Christians with immense horizons of hope for evangelization and
expansion. Seleucia-Ctesiphon was a natural meeting place of mercantile
caravans fkom Arabia. Central Asia, India and China. Christians were a
majority among the mercantile classes from Constantinople and Alexandria. It
was here that the East Syrian Church became acquainted with people ti.om all
the countries of rlie East.
According ro blollLt1. i ~ !css
:
than two hundred years after the death of
Christ, tho Syrian Christians were lieginning to carry the faith not just across
the Asian borde~sof Korne, a ~ i dnot into Persia alone, but out across the
continent toward the steppes ofti1c. central Asiatic nomads and the edges of the
Hindu ~ u s h ' .
Initially, Christianity spread among the -4rab tribes in contact with
Rome I . The Arab Kingdom of Hirah was a vassal of Persia, west of the
Euphrates and had become Christian by the late fourth century
2.
Many of the
Christians who in the following centuries held positions of leadership, in
medicine or scholarship came from this srnall kingdom and from Ghassan, the
Christian Arab kingdom adjoining Syria and a vassal to Byzantium 3 .
Arabia: The land, the people arid the language
.4rabia had lung bcen a land on the margins of two world empires
Iiorne and Parthia.
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For i;entilries its people had lived without having been
absorbed into either onL. Arabia was the cradle of Islam and Arabic
civilization in the sixth century .4D. It was a region with some sedentary
agricultural and commercial life centred in Yemen and the borders of Syria
and Iraq, but the interior was the domain of camel-raising Bedouin nomads.'
The Arabs lived mainly in the Arabian Peninsula and that the term Arab
meant ca~nelnomads. Eve11M o r e the emergence of Islam the Arabs were
-
The name Arab elvcn :o abulii 100 llllll~orlsocrsons who live in a -arour,
. of independent nations Stale
in North Africiand the Middle East have a ;omman linguistic and cuitura! heritage. The religion of
Islam has sheoed this heritaec. aithouch c b w t one tenth of'the Arabs are not Muslims. On the basis of
physrca! cliaracterislir 3. the Ar;ihs arc rcgardrd as Mediterranean
I
.
:
d
,
The ivholi. ~ribcaioi,~.with a :nciphhourir!.c trib; tioin the !;dine desert area between the Euphrates and
the Hcllciristic Romar! towns north of D u r ~ s c u shad become Christian, according to Sozomen, about
ten ycilrs carlier ihroug!, the ,,:ontact with priests and monks who dwelt in the neighbouring deserts.
2.
The scmi rr~dependcn~
Arab statc cf' tlirtha in southern lh4esopotamia lay on the direct route from
Persia to South A ~ a b i aand served at least as a resting place for those proceeding further.
3.
John. Niiiory. 28
4.
By thc lar~.-U)SOOa. stverai slliill! Arab kingdems had been formed along the borders and had become
client states of one or the other pou,er. 'The majority of Arab people, however still lived outside the
domain of cithcr empire. hfostl? they were organized politically according to traditional tribal
patterns
:
5.
Like Arahra therc wcrc a nurobcr oS5maii ~nilcpcndcntbuflkr svates between Rome and I'arthia
Sevcrib! 01 Illern ..ii.rc ufAroh i r i t u
Thc mos: idvanct .Arab comi;,u~~iiiti
i ~ , c l i :'ti liic oasis of Mccca and Medina. Mecca was a sanctuary
ceorur) AD t,) tl-ihcsolc~ic~lli,!thz Uuraysh It shrine the Kazba, becalrlr a centre for
settled in llic
Arabian pilgrimage arid trade. hlcdina was a,; agrisulturai oasis, divided by bitter feuds among t!~c
Arab pagans and betwccn the pagin and i c i v i s h clans of the oasis.
found in a11 the I-egions beyond the northern border in Syria Palestine,
Mesopotamia, Babylonia, and in western part of Persia. Some were cultivators
and some were nomads. \i'hile some lived in cities. A large number migrated to
live in the cities of Syria and Mesopotamia where its merchants carried
extensive commercial tradciArab merchants played a significant role in
moving goods to the markets in Syria, Mesopotamia, Armenia and elsewhere
Politically and culturally the highly developed Byzantine and Sassanian
empires that surrounded it influenced Arabian Peniasula. Military techniques,
weapons, material goods, and above all the ideas of the Jewish and Christian
religions were sprexding by settlements, itinerant preachers, and ccntacts with
already converted border people. Culturally the Arabic people belonged to the
Semitic family. Arabic culture had known tradition of indigenous religious
prophets who engaged in ecstatic urterances. 'There had always been a host of
locai deities worshipped in [he vsr-ious cities where Christians lived. They
were the targets of Christian effnrts to evangelize their neighbourhoods,
encountering with the Jewish community, Manichaean and Zoroastrians, with
varying degrees of hostility being expressed and an interaction with Buddhism
and Chinese religious traditions.
Christian beginnings anlong Arabs:
I[
15
very d~ffictil~
!o say when and how exactly Christianity came to
peninsular \rabi;l:'
The coincidence of the opening of the trade routes into
farther Asla with the ascendancy of the East Syrian Church offered a ready
outlet for missionary effio1-r. Beginning with Apostle Paul himself, who, after
I.
Thc Roman world III gsnci;i! ig:~orcd l i x Arab coontrics as containing nothing but sand and a few
paln?s (hre rhsng ziiune n!d.ie Southern 4r;ihia important to Rome. It !tanked the Wcst's only reliable
tradc rnulc to Asia, down t ! ~ c Rrd Sca and across the Indian Ocean
:
2
3.
Strnan
Mtsslnn:rri Enrrrpi-isps. 30
Soins ,,:'the goods they tr;it~sportcd\\err products of Arabia itsciS such as camels, goat skins, or the
fragrznccs of the .south. hlos: <ofthcin were products that Arabic traders bought and then sold at a
prolit. making then, rmpol-innt nliddle pusoris in the inti:rnational con~mercialeconomy.
Arabia is not a laind of Ct~risiian,toda) Rut therc werz many Christians in Arabia once. The risc of
Islam cciipsed Chrlstianiti i n th;rt par: ofthe world.
his conversion, preached Christ in synagogues in Damascus, Syria. After that
he went to Arabia where he preached for three years.
Syrian and Arab
historians relate the fac! that Aramean Syrian Evangelists and missionaries
converted nlany tribes iri Arabia into Christianity in the pre-Islamic periods.
Among these Christians tribes for insliince are Taghleb, the sole and strongest
tribe to enchance and enforce the throne of the first Arabic State Omayyah
whose capital was Dan~ascus during whose reign the rest of the Islamic
conquests here launched
A
The Christian mesage to these areas rnight have been mainly through
the important trade route:, which were Christian centres in Arabia connecting it
to Persia, Syria and Egypt. Some historians believe that Christianity in Arabia
was a branch of the East Syrian Church, which expanded
Christian denominations in the early centuries.
faster than other
3
Several historians liave suggested that another mode of entrance had
been by emigration of ('hristians from Persia at the time of persecution.
Christian refugees during the
t m e
of the tiercz persecutions in Persia fled to
the independent kirigdonis in the Arabian peninsula. It was
south and !o the centre
mainly to the
t)f Arabia that the: refi~geesof this church fled,
although some Christians !vent lo the northern Arabia too4. There was the
possibility of' Christianity being present in Arabia even before the persecution
of Shapur-11. since there was fairly constant intercourse between Yemen and
Hirtha, via l-lirtha with ~ e r s i a . '
i
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'l'c~unt.~.
O~.!/,odot/ . , # l / w v x . I <
:
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. I I?
Accordiilp io him rhc ruler ul !:des\;!
Killg .~\lrgar. became n Christian who was of Arab Origin.
Particulari) In the Isiisr part ul rhi. rrigl! 01' Sllapur 11 (310-379AD) %vhopersecuted the Christians
severrl) l'ro~n339 .'ID unwartlb Ih;sc iinmzgran:~[nust bil\c mostly gone either by land througi~tile
scml indcpenden! Ai;!l. state rnt'!l~r.t or acr(i+ :he I'ersian Gulf to the coast of Oman. and rrojn thcru
sou:biiard\ to Ycnicri
-I.
:
5
bI
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Accordsng 10 the f3ui.k of 1 1 1 tlii~i;ynritcs nil otller sources, the rchgees fled from Persia. They
travellrd clther hy sca ur by 1;u:d 1.: ~ o a s t si)filnran, Hadramaut. Hira or Hinha.
Stiwsrl . 1li.rsionan t n i e r a r r ~ , : i!
~ quotsd
trill,i
, Moherg. hfmnryarilrer, 1x1 Zwemcr, Islam, 19-20.
Medium for transniission of Christian Message
I t can be broadly srated that Christianity spread through the Arabian
provinces by virtue of the work of ascetics and contribution of Theophilos, the
deacon and Abdhiso, the monk. S . I . Moffett is of the opinion that the desert
ascetics played an i~nportantrole to cany the Christian message all along the
Arab countries.' Impressed by Syrian asceticism a number of Arabs embraced
Christianit!. in the fiurth ~ e n r u r y . ~
l'here is another tradition about the introduction of Christianity to this
area. During the reign (11' the Roman emperor,Constantine, Theophilus, a
deacon of Nicomedia, was sent by the emperor to lead an embassy to southern
Asia, the coast of Himayar.' He was successful in persuading the king of the
Himparites who was a non-Christianl to become a Christian. He built the
churches at %afar, ,\den. Sana, and Hormuz in tlie Persian Gulf. There were
four bishoprics being established there, among converts who were at first
Arian in theology but later embraced Nicene orthodoxy.4
The Chronic/e Setrt mentions that Abdisho, the Monk built one
monastery at Baharin a b o u 390 AD. Abdisho might have frequented a
company of East Syrian Christian refugees out of Persia, who were persecuted
I.
I h c car!:csi ;\rab C'hrlillan c ( > ~ ~ i ~ i ~ l ~SCUII!
i ~ , t ito
i . siiavc ( I ~ v e I ~ p cirom
d c0111~cts
with d c x r t
them.
unwiitll;~l! attract~x!I,, Chrisi:an~t\man! !\llo d~sci~vered
B S C C ~ ~ C~S 1 1 0
: Hilarion (291-271AL)) bvas on< o! ~ n a n y\$ho in this way fostered groups o f Arab-speaking monks in
the Negcv Aquabh and further rssi
.
: Cragg ('hr,,rian, 40
2.
This can br tilustrared by the fvllowing ini'ldmt . Under pressure from warrior, Arabiall queen named
Mavia who was a Christiw., invited one bishc.p, Moses to live among the people (ca 373 AD). The
historians Socrates, Sozomcrr, and Thcodoret reported it. It is from that date that the christianisation o f
the borderland Arabs proceeded apace. I n thic expansion ;I number o f monasteries played important
roles at Hira. By the fifth centiiry llira became a i l important center for advancing Ncstorianisrn among
the Arabs oi'the east
: Socrates. 6 ; ~ci Hisr
,
Yi'VI;, VI,I :!. 1 !6.
3
After Coiistn:ii~ne'sa~.~.ession
i u power throughoul thc Empire in 324 AD, there were increased efforts l o
convert such Arabs. Julian souglit tu use thun in his ill-fated campaign against Persia in 361-363 .
3
Stewart . Miriionory tnrcrpri~es.5:;-jJ
by Shapur-11. Undoubtedly they found haven in Arabia and bore Christian
witness there. These refugees, missionaries moved down the Arab side of the
Persian Gulf preaching the faith and establishing missionary monasteries. On
his return to Yemen, he proclaimed the gospel in Yemen as well as in the
neighbouring placcs
'
ilczording to Sozomen, the whole tribe in the desert
area between thc Eupi-:rates and the Hellenistic Roman towns north of
Damascus had become C'hristian, ahout ten years earlier through the contact
with the priests and with :he rnoaks who dwelt in the neighbouring deserts
who were distinguished by their purity of life and by their n~iraculousgifts2.
Clearly by the end of the fourth centuly the Christian Church existed in
a number of centres in southern ~rabia-'. Najran bcczme the major centre for
Christians. situated as i t was on the trade route f o n i South Arabia to Syria,
via Mecca.
Tine Christians at Naj1.an were granted a wider measure of
religious liberty, or-: iol:(iit.ii~iitiiat they paid a special tax, which in their case
~ Book of Himyrites deals with the persecution in
was levied in ~ 1 0 t h . '!he
Najaran and Yemen in tirst quarter of the sixth century and makes important
reference:; to other places and events. 5
Christians established themselves in Hira and Kufa by 380
AD.According to Van G.!3 Grunebaum, the East Syrian Christians of Hirta
formed a close co!nmurrit? calling themselves 'servants of God' whose inner
unity transcended :raditiond Arab tribal d i f f e r ~ n c e s . ~
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3
In Yemen, the jrus wsrc numerous and they persecuted the Christians at the initial stage. Scholars
like, Ian Gillman. liold 15: e ~ c t rthat !Irere is nu I i m i indication o f Christians in appreciable nu~nbcrs
on ihc Arabian I'cninsula hi,lbrc thc liio:tli century. Ambassador n;!med Theophilus was sent to seek
an :illiaiice wilh 1hi. H i m j a r ~ ~and
e j to l i x l c r the work o f thz church in the Yclnen.
: i:$!,
C,~lln?an,(.l~,~rmarz~
, -8
I t was 3150 a ccntrc for grr,>rinf Jcwisi: pilwer from
into violent coll~\lan.
350
.a
and th~.two faiths \rere dcs:ined
to come
P.Hitti reported that the Arab king Al-Numan (400-418AD) was a pagan
and sometimes persecuted his Christian subjects but the faith spread and
eventually reached even into his
The Arab Christians of Hirta taught
the desert Arabs the language Syriac. They learned to read and write, giving
them a cultural advantage over most of the rest of the people of the northern
Arabian Peninsula'
Persecution of Christians in Arabia by a Jewish Ruler - C.520
'fhc Jews in Arabia persecuted the Christians. W.G. Young quotes an
incident of persecution in Najran. Masruq, probably the King of Yemen, and
his general, Zu-Yazan, persecuted the Christians there. His mother who was a
Jewess converted Masruq to the Jewish faith. Many of his followers would be
pagan Arabs. Masruq captured Najran. He put the Christian men to death.
The following account tells of the martyrdom of the wornen folk'.
[Masruq said to Zu-Yazan] 'Cio and enter Najran and bring
together the wives of those rebels who were killed on Friday, and bid them
deny Jesus. And those who decy shall be Jews with us, and be alive, but
those who do not deny shall die as bitterly as their husbands.' ... They
brought together to him the believing freeborn women of Najran whom
they found. one hundred and seventy-seven in number. And they brought
with them also many children whom they carried. They were imprisoned.
But these women chose the ways their husbands' ways- the way of cross
for the sake of Christ, God. Zu-Yazan reported to Masruq, who ordered
them to be brought out to the place where their husbands had been killed,
and there pu; to a painful death.
They prayed for help for God, while they are persecuting. 'Christ,
God, come to our help! Oh our Lord, Jesus Christ, behold our oppression
in this moment and turn not away from us, but grant in us the power to
accomplish this our way by martyrdom for Thy sake, that we may also go
and reach our brethren who died for Thy sake. And forgive us our sins,
and receive the sacrifice of our lives as acceptable before Thee.
I . The musl f;t~nous01 al! Ihc l.;lhl~llrid k i n g i i a \ Al-Muodir Ill (505-554AU). I l e bscame Christia~i
towards ~ h 2nd
c of The tilth cenulrj
: Hirti, ,rrahv 83
.
3.
Young, ,S'oiir<.esToxl N
t
408
But those women who had with them little children, set them down on the
ground and covered them with their garments, and stood Themselves,
spreading uut their hands to heaven. till suddenly [one] of them was
overpowered, and fell to the ground. Then these murderers.. Began to slay
them with swords without mercy, [so that] neither a single one of them nor
a s~nglechild remained alive. So then these handmaids of God were
crowned by a good confession on this same day, Monday [probably 271h
November. 5231 And those men who told us of their wondrous martyrdom
mentioned also to us a few of their names out of many. The'list contains
90 names in all; the children mentioned are all girls.
Another perseculion began about 522AD, though there is great
uncertainty about the dates. Perhaps it starred as taxation levied against the
Christians by the king. EIostility intensified, with Christians burning Jewish
synagogues in Najran and the .Arabs of Jewish faith tearing down Christian
churches in the south.
Tile Christians appealed for help to the nearest
Christian power, Ethiopii;. The ruler had long claimed sovereignty, over
Arabia and responded ro the appeal of the Arab Christians with a massive
invasion in 523AD that drove the Himyarite king, Dhu-Nawas from his capital
of Zafar. The ?hocking massacre at Najran horrified the Christian world and
widened the conflict by drawing in both Roman Byzantium and Sassanid
Persia. It was reported that the Jewish-Arab prince Dhu-Nawas burned alive
'427 ecclesiastics. monks ;md nuns. killed 4252 christians and enslaved 1297
children and young people below :he age of fifteen''
Thc patriarch's o ~ e r a l lpobitive attitude towards the Arabs in echoed
some decades later by John of Phcnek, writing in the 690's, following plagues
in AD 686-687. With a hciglitened t.schatologica1 expectancy, John is still able
to uphold the idea that thc Arabs were divine!y called:
'We should not think of the:r ~ d v e n as
t something ordinary, hut as due to
divine working. Before calling them, God had prepared them beforehand to
hold Christians in honour: thus they also had a special comtnandment from
God concerning our nonabtic station, that they should hold it in honour.
It is believed that these persecutions were due to the spread of non-
chalcedonian and Jewish activities in these areas, which led to Jewish
Christian, conflict to the massacre of many Christians and Jews.
In spite of
the persecutions. the Arab Christians through out the eastern part of the Roman
Empire as well as in I'ersia, with great ~nissionaryspirit took the gospel to the
different parts LIC Arahi;~.
Literary Works
l'he Christianity. which reached the Arabs had the flavour of Aramaic
culture via the Syriac !anguage. It continued to do so whether it came from
Nestorian. non- chalcedonians cr non-chalcedonic sources. Its seems to be no
evidence of a pre-Muslim translation of the Bible into Arabic, or of a Christian
Church at that time using in Arabic service. It is probable that the Christian
Bible in use in i\rabi;i a1 this time was in ~ ~ r i a c . "It is believed that the
Arabic script was inve:lted by the major contributions of the East Syrian
Christians which helped :he writings of the (&ran.*
One of -thc oldest known tilanuscripts of the New Testament is an
Arabic translation of the Syriac Peshitta, fkom the eighth century. Christian
inscriptions in Greeki Syriac !Arabic have also been found at Harran and
Zabad. Hunayn ibn ishall was the Nestor'ian scholar who was one of the
greatest scholars and noblest characters of the age. He was the translator into
Syriac and Arabic of Nippocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Galen and the Greek
Septuagin!. He u;as also a skilled physician also3.
The result of interaction between Arabs and East Syrian Cliurch
1Ihc Arabians, though very powerful and achieved rapid progress, they
lacked education. Their language was a Illere dialect unfit to express the
. Rlysticism . I l l 5
I.
Smith
2.
Cragg Kciri~eth. Arab.
3.
Hitti. A r ' i h ~ , 118
94
intellectual and political ideals of the great empire, which they were rapidly
building. Their language-. was closely related to Hebrew, Syriac and Aramaic.
The Arabic Language
Little is known about the written form of Arabic prior to the seventh
century. Even the Arclb~clanguage, after the Islamic Conquests, was renewed
and enriched through the Christian, Aramean, Syrians', interpretations
translations and commentaries. It is likely that the script was most likely
derived from Syriac, and mighi have emerged from trading cities where Arab
merchants needed to keep their own records.
The East Syrian Christian
Mission in the Arab in Peninsula influenced Islam. Among the technical terms
in the Quran seeming to be archaic. are rather derived from the Aramic Syriac.
Here are some examples I
-
1
(I)
--
-
-
-
---
--
Quran :
Thuugh t h ~ shind of vcrbal noun exists seldom in ancient Arabic , however, it seems to be coincd
from the Aramaic Syrlac 'Quriaiz', 'Quriano'.It means 'a reading' derived from the word 'Qro' or
'Qrorr ' means lo read recile, coll.sound
:
For the Qurn,i per sr. legislates to the Arabs the religion of Moussa (Moses) and lssa (Jesus)
without discrinlination, teaches them '(he Book and the Wisdom'- the 'Torah and the Gospel' and
h ~ slogan
s
is 'Do not make a distinction between any one of his prophets'.
(14)
Jameh (hlosque)
Tlic word did not chist even befort Islam. For it means textually and literally, Churclz, (or
Kmssa). It is derived from the Arablc verb Jan~aa,to gather together, at collect. Exactly as
Kaii~ssa,a church, which from the Aramaic Syriac verb Knash, to gather together or collect.
Far the pronunciation of 'SH' in Arm~nicSyriac is transformed sometimes to 'S' in Arabic and
vice versa
(iii) Masjed:
The other uirrli in Aldnic fhr Mosqur .s M a ~ q e dor Mnsged (from thc verb Sajijodu or Soguda)
der~vzdalso tium the 41.maic Syriilr Masgdo (the verb is sged, to bow doxn or to bow in
worship). This veiy act of uorshipping God by bowing down one's face to the earth.
:
Ths, was periiirmed for thc tirst ;imc by ..\braham, thc first father of monotheism.
:
i31hl~.Geossii.lY:18, ?2,2'.21:48
It n~cansIn Arabic, thr ~ a i l i u gSol piayer. I t did also exist before Islam. If this term was used, it
%as probably tui the purpose of calling for prayer in the church. For Azan, the Syriac verbal noun
nleszls especial!) a convenient time as it:r prayer, for work and so on.
Some have suggested that the script might have had Christian
influences behind it. Perhaps having been devised by unknown Syriac monks
were intending to tran>late Christian literature. In any case prior to the seventh
century there was virtually no Arabic literary production apart from a number
of works of Arabic poetry. They intermingled with the Aramaic-speaking
peoples of the region and spoke the language; Aramaic Language is the basis
of the Arabian cultural and political unity. It is likely that the Qur'an the sacred
revelation of tht Islamic faith which was delivered to Muhammad through a
series of divine inspirations, was the first complete book ever written in
Arabic. East Syrian Christians were employed to translate into Arabic from
Syriac translations the works of the Greek philosophers. Schools of philosophy
and medicine were opened in many of the large, cities. Most of the teachers
were E a s ~Syrian Christians.
Inter relation between Arabic and Greek
For, besides, their own language, the Syrians were well versed in
Arabic as well as in Greek, due to the continuous contacts through cultural and
commercial relations between the Aramean Syrian world and the Arabic
world, even since the first period of Christiantiy. An important factor in the
history of the civilization of the region which should be recalled is that Greek
philosophy and Greek culture. even though they existed centuries before and
after the Christian era. d ~ dnot contribute much towards religion and progress
in the east. nor even in the western world, because they were not understood in
its real sense. 'The classical learning grew out of the zeal of the Assyrian
writers who wrote the commentaries on the works of the Greek philosophers.
Thus finally
they succeeded in harmonizing Greek philosophy with Semitic
thought and science with religion'. At this period the East Syrian Church
libraries contained more !nanuscrip!s of classical and scientific learning than
I.
I'or example. haaling wds dune b) tlic priests. hut whcn nicdicine was introduced, thc priests
offered to the patient brith .nrdicinc and )prayer.
any others throughout the world. Most scholars will admit that as far as the
beginnings of modem chemistry, gun powder, the compass, medicine,
philosophy and even in some measure, theology, are concerned, much is due to
the combined labours ol'the East Syrian Christians and the Arabs. I
There were Arab Christians through out the eastern part of the Roman
Empire ~s well as in I'ersia. The role of Arab Christians themselves was
significant in attracting others to the faith. Christian hermits found solitude in
desert areas. Their asceticism and miraculous powers had considerable
influel~ceon the .Arabs among whom they lived.3 Apart from such influences
Christian merchants who plied their trade, promoted their faith along the
caravan routes. The Arab rulers were very tolerant towards their Christian
subjects, especially towards the East Syrian Christians, to whom they granted
certain special privileges, exempting them from military service and from the
tributes, which they levied on other conquered races. Permission was given to
build churches also.
Bishoprics in Arabian Christian Community
As for the East Syrian Christians, they became strongly missionary in
the late fifth century, as they came to dominate the Christian Church in Persia.
While at first they had concentrated their efforts along the areas bordering on
the western shore of the Persian Gulf, including Bahrain, they made their
prcsencc felt also in Yemexi . But the first account of'a Christian community in
Arab territory beyond the area ol' Roman influence was a bishopric at Beit
I.
It i \ intercstmg to n o t ~lioii (irech ~!)oughtaas 11-anstbrtned by the East Syrian Christians, to llie
Ambs. and through thc gzi81us nf the Anbian empire to the far corners ofAfrica, Spain and Europc.
and ihen back again !n Greece. 'lhu, I I encircled the heart of the world and became the greatest
contr~butionwhich the 1-;:i51Syrian Chriiriaus and Arabs have made to the mankind.
2.
n i o i i g thrln
L ~ C I CY ~ I I ~ C
~nicrchant
III
l!a!)an ( ~ 4 0 0hIil\viya,
)
Quecn of the West Tanukhs (late fourth
ccnlnry) and tilnd. wife o f t h e Ar;ih K ~ n gMundir I l l (early sixth century)
3.
Onc iuch ligurs. enshr~nedin legend as the founder of Christianity in Najran, was the Syrian ascetic,
Phzmton, who was captl~rcdby Arabs and sold as a slave in that town. There his piety and wonderworking was uajd to h a w 1r.d to the conv~rsionof much of the population.
Katraye on the Persian Gulf (Qatar) near Bahrain by the mid of third century.'
Those who had accepted Christianity in the region during the second half of
the fourth century were represented by a 'Bishop of the Arabs' at the synod at
Antioch in AD 363-364.
'
It is said that Antioch had an Arab bishop under its
ecclesiastical authorit) in 350 .4D as well as 451 AD in Beit katraye.'
Likewise there were eighteen Arab metropolitans and bishops at the Council
of Chalcedon. In the l i s ~of bishops consecrated by Catholicos Timothy I (780820AD), there is a mention of the bishops of Yemen and Sana.
By 410 A,[). Hirta had a bishop and it is believed that the king himself
became a Christian in 512 A.D. It was at about the same time that the faith was
first systematically pl.opagateJ in lower Arabia, not by foreign Persian
missionary but thl-ough the eltorts o:'a native
The East Syrian Church under the Caliphate
The Arabs conqured the Syrain world at the beginning of the 7'' century
AD. The newborn Islamic societies, Arabic and Iranic, arose out of the ruins
of the dead Syrian world. That means that the Syrians were victims of their
peoples as well as of the Byzantine before them. So in the history of Asian
church. the period 650 to 1000 AD was the loss of Middle East to Islam, which
was more than the loss of its home and birthplace. It marked the first
permanent check to Christian expansion in all the previous six hundred years
of the history of the church'. The Muslim conquest terminated the Persian era
of Asian church history.
I.
The lirst known bishop ol':~omadArab, wa fJamphilos of lhc Tarinaye who was an ascetic from tllc
Sbrian ilesert in Mesopotarnia and as such attended the Council ofNicara.
2.
Vun Cirunebaum. l i i s r o ~ 23
.
3.
kloberg. .ilrmrynrirc.s. 5 1
4.
Sid~lisi, Developni~,nr . 3-4 I9 l :
5
Mol'feti. lf~sroq~.
325
:
Vmgana, Sources Vol.1-lO
I'n~liardt. People 75
The seventh century brought about a new religious movement that
erupted from Arabia. Guided by the inspiration of the prophet Muhammad,
Islam burst upon the ancient world with a combination of religious fervor and
military skill . Many Syriac traditions, doctorines, manners and morals, as well
as other spiritual virtues and values infiltrated Islam's life and belief. it was
an unpwallel in human history. The East Syrian Christians in Persia welcomed
the Arabs as liberators from Zoroastrian operation and that the Arab
conquerors in turn found it more to their advantage to segregate and use the
Christiar~sthan to exterminate them.' Within a few short decades, Muslim
armies had toppled the Persian empire and shook the East Roman empire to its
core. During the reign of Catholicos Yashuyab-I1 (628-44AD) the Muslin1
invaders seized Seleucia-Ctesiphon after the battle of al-Qadisiya in 637, and
subsequently the whole empire succumbed to their armies. 3
Christian churchcs were being constantly converted into Mohammedan
mosques, and the cross supplanted and replaced by the crescent. The Persians
made every effort to check the ~ d v a n c eof the Mohammedan armies, but all
these attempts failed to beaken the spirit of the war like tribes of Arabia.
The old Mazdaen state came to an end, and now the Muslim ruled all
Persia under Lhe orthodos Caliphs. Persia became a simple province in the vast
Arab empire whose seat of government was moved from Mecca to Damascus.
I
Sir I.lao~llton A.l<.Gibbs, in hi?,book. 'Muhmmedism', puts it this way, '0t1the other hand, not only
thr idcas expressed by Muhammed about the resurrection of the physical and the future life, but also
mainy details about the piuccsi nfjudgement and cven the pictorial presentation of the joys of paradise
and torments of Hell, as ucll as several of the special technical terms employed in the Qur'an, arc
clzarl\ paralleled in the writing uf the Syrllrc Christian fathers and monks.'
1.
Tile Arabian cilrlquest ot I'crsia was d~llrrent,however, from that of Syria. In this instance the
Mohammedans were trying to stamp out paganism, and therefore they enlisted on their side forces of
the Eastern Christians who had bee11 persecuted by these same pagans. These Christians in Persia
universally regarded the advent of thc lslan!ic army as the hope of salvation from the tyrannical rule
of paganism.
99
T h e P r o p h e t M o h a m m e d a n d Office of t h e C a l i p h a t e
The office of the Caliphate was established on the death of the profet
Mohammed in 632 AD in order to provide for the continuation of organized
community life among :he diverse peoples whom Mohammed had converted
to new faith of Islam. The Caliphs became both general of the Arab armies
with the duty of waging Jihad and administration in the territories they
conquered. As a trader Muhammad himself would have been aware of the
Christian presence in Arabia and in Syria. The Patriarch Yeshuyab-I1 (628643AD) was said to have seen Muhammad in person, and to have received
from him a document conferring special privileges upon christiansl.
Greater contact with East Syrian Christians would have produced a
different attitude in Muhammad towards Christology. Muhammad continued
to
have a more positive attitude towards the Christians, feeling that he had
rnore in common with them, notwithstanding grave differences. But it is
understood that on hhis deathbed he decreed that there should be only one
religion in Arabia
'
By
combination of ideology and conquest, Muhammad
and his close followers created an Arabian nation integrating the tribes of the
F'eninsula.
1
The rapid expansion and growth of Islam cannot be paralleled.
No other religion has succeeded in becoming so dominant during the lifetime
of its founder. Within ibrty years of its appearance in the East it unified the
roaming tribes of Arabia into a confederated state.
T h e U m a y y a d Dynasty (661-750 AD)
The oversight of l'ersia was delegated to local governors, whose attitude
towards Christians was, d reflection of that of their superiors (Caliphs). The
IJmayad dynasty was cellrered in Damascus. The new dynasty moved the
1.
l'hcrc is a tradition that i hc ai'his i n l c l ~ ~ uwas
~ s a monk, named Sarjis who was nicknamed Uabiril
k:snerienced).His earl> associatch. to;!udiog 11)sadopted son Zatd werc Christians.
Srrjrant Histuri'. 104
:
Zliya Histcry 267
(llx
:
.
center of government ,)ut of Syrla. which had been the power base of the
Ilmayyads. east ward into Iraq (Mesopotamia). Umayyad derived from
Umayyad who wab a cousin of the Prophet Mohammeds grandfather and an
ancestor of the dynasty's founder, Muawiya-I. Under the Umayad Dynasty, the
military and the Government aspects of the Caliphate overwhelmed the
communal and the religious legacy in the eyes of the many contemporaries.
With the cuming of the Abbasids (750-1258AD) new capital, Baghdad on the
banks of the Tigris. became the center of authority
'
The Abbasids Empire (750 AD to 1258 AD)
The
Abbasids ruled Islam in Asia, 750 AD to 1258 AD as the most
celebrated and long lived dynasty in Islam. They claimed to be more strictly
orthodox than their predect~ssorsand proved to be more aggressively Muslim
in the treatment of religious minorities than the practical-minded Umayyads.
The heartlands of Iran suffered next and 642 AD the final battle occurred at
Nihavand. It was but a fcw more years before the last Sasanian ruler
Yazdgard-11. was assassinated by one of his own soldiers at Merv in 651 AD.
Another.basic change in the empire was the change in the ethnic
composition of the governing Arabic community. The Abbasids, who came to
power on a tide of Islamic orthodoxy, gave religion a recognized priority over
race. True religion. not Arab birth. was to be the basis of Islamic rule. While
.~
I. Both Albert Hourani aild F 01,lar g;lve a ljsl o! the noted Abbasid caliphs. The nanles were
A l - Sa<fair ( 750.754) who gavc lii; dynust) the n;une A b b s i d
Al-Mansur 754-755 a h u adoptcd Persian %ays and moved the capital to Damascus.
Al-Mahdi !775-785). ivho frlcl~d the IS(' l'atriarch l~iniothy-I
Ilarun ill-R;lslrid i 785-809) rulcd .*IIbe hcight oi' Abbasid powrr and uppressed the Christians.
Al-Amiun 1809-8 131 decline 111Arsh influence
Ap-Ma'rnuii (813-833) power tloivs to thc provinces.
Al-Murasimn (833.8471 who was ina able to escape the rising power ofthe l'urkis in his empire.
A l - Mutawakkil(847-861 )who irlcrease social a ~ financial
d
pressures on religious minorities
A l - Mutamiil ( 870-892) who encouraged the Muslim religion
A l -Muqadir( 908 ,9321 A1 -Mustakli (944-9461 A l - Muti (946 974 ) \ r h o lost Egypt l u the Fatimats
-
:
i i o u r i l , , ~ , l i u b Pey,!ci.
30-3.7
:!:)mar. -Ihh,urd Culrphate. 750-786
Until the l i n of
~ the lhird cal~ph.Mahdi (775-?85) the dynasty had been firmly established in its new
capital. l 3 i the nmth centur!, thrrc was 8 period o f increasing social and religious discrimination.
But after 900, as the cu!iphatr s!o.uly disintcgra~edunder the pressure oilslam's angry internal religious
conflict: anhlthe political 105- o f North Afilc;t and Egypt. The weakness o f the dynasty brought for a
while morc ;ieedom a p i n for i-'iir;stian and i c ~ i s .
,,.
/
:
101
-. ..
.,.-
. -.
..
.
i~
.
' .
I
.
,.... ..~.,. ,:
-
,'
. , .h
.
the 'Umayyad empire was Arab, the Abbasid was more iwernational: The
.i
Abbasid was an empire of Neo Moslems in which the ~ r a b s ' 6 only
t one
of the many component races.
... ."
-:
.-.
The Christian Church during the leadership of Timothy- I
Timothy - I (778-ST:), \vho c a n ~ efrom Adiabene, the ancient seat of the
earliest Persian Christians. Ivas the greatest of all the Patriarchs who served
under the caliphateJ. He vcas a skillful diplomat in his dealings with ambitious
bishops as well as with absolute monarchs2. Timothy presided as Patriarch for
more than forty years,
serving
also under Mahdi's three successors. Mahdi
ordered the destruction ot borne churches and as added punishment forbade
Christians to have slaves As a theologian within the church, he strongly
defended Nestorian orthodoxy. Tuice in general synods he argued against
deviations, first in 798 AD and again in 804AD, insisting on 'purity of faith and
knowledge of the bcripturrs'.
As Baum Stark observes, it was in his time that the heresies of Henana
were finall) put to rest.' He was also strongly missionary-minded Patriarch,
who taught and dei'ended the faith, and eagerly expanded it. llis zeal was
not limited to his empire. Ibr his position gave him the authority over the East
I.
The list otpatrrarchs <,ithe1!S<' iif the Ahbastd caliphate (750-1000 AD) as follows:Mar Aba I 1 ( 742-352), Surknus (7543, Jacob 11 ( 754 - 773). Hananyeshy 11 (774 - 778). ~I'ilnuill).I
(778-820) Josue (820 - 824'1. Gregory 11 ( 825-8291. Vacancy ( 829- 832) Sabrayeshu 11 ( 832-836)
Ergius ( 860 - 872 )
( 84') - 852) 'Theodosisus ( 852 - 898)
Abrallam i l (836 -8.19)
V'.ii,ii;cy
.
Vacant) ( 872-877) Eno, i 877 -- 884 1. john 11 ( 884 - 892) Johyn 111 ( 892 -- 898 ) , Juhll IV
(900-'105) Abraham !il ( 905 '1.37). Em~n;muel ( 938 - 960), Israel ( 962) Ebcdycshu 1 (936 -986).
Marcs ( 987 - 1OO01 I
.
2.
3.
;l story :ihoitt his e l c c i i ~ ~
to~tlrr
i Patriarchate illustrating the combination of worldly
ingcnuii! and Chr,m;tn intcgrtty ll~utwas ;i c!iiiracteristic ofhis administration. As the clectors galhercd
for thc botc he olln\vud the811 sight of some lhcavy sacks, &hich, corrupted by thc society ufthe time, they
presuo~cdro be moi;q availi~blci b r dis:rihut~un if he were elected. AOer t l ~ celection the sacks turncd
out I<,
hr filled witii nothi;;g hut stones. and the unruffled new Patriarch chided them, 'the priestl~oodis
not to be sold for money'.
I..E l3io\\ne relatci
mu tit^. i!rstwr,.
?7(1
Quoted fiuni Baun;i;:irk. Geschichte der sy:isclim Literatur Bonn : 1922
~
..
Syrian Christians in T'ang - dynasty China and the Thomas Christians of
India. It was Timothy who wisely granted to the churches of southern India
independence from the Persian metropolitanate of Fars (Rewardashir),
appointing what appears to have been the first known metropolitan in india'.
Mingana also reported of an assertion that Mari, the twelfth-century Nestorian
historian. that'Timothy convzrted to the (Christian) faith the Khafan (king) of
the Turks.. . . -4nd instructed Inany in Christian doctrine2.'
Timothy was educated at the great Adiabene monastery of Beit Abhe,
'Mother of Patriarchs and Bishops' and of ' ~ i s s i o n a r i e s ' ~Perhaps
.
it was
Timothy's commitment to monastic renewal and the worldwide spread of the
gospel that led him., in a world that seemed to be turning Muslim, to work cooperatively with. the Christians of the non-Nestorian dhimmis, the Syrian
Orthodox Christians and the Melkites.
He had been given a measure of
authority over them. ' His Patriarchate coincided with the great age of Muslim
intellectual ferment and enquiry. He was even bold enough to openly to pray in
the presence of the Caliph.
Contribution of East Syrian Church to develop Arabic as a literary language
By the time of the Arab invasions, the ecclesiastical boundaries
between the different Christian communities had already become virtually
fixed. In the 9Ih century Syriac began to be supplanted by Arabic in popular
speech. Syriac continued as the liturgical and scholarly language. As a result
of widespread adoption of ilrabic as a literary language, especially in the
Melkite and Maronite Churches. writers of East Syriac Church and Syriac
Orthodox Church a f e r have produced nll Syriac literature there in Arabic.
~
Yo, I1 . (July 1926) 467
I.
Mingana.
2.
Mingana .
3.
Thomas of hlarga. Booh of Goi.i.ir~ors.2:448
4
Moffett. Ilirruty 370 quoted from l'mothy I lcttzrs ed. 0 Braun as Simothei Patriarchae epistolae letters
21 and 39 in ('SCO scrqit Syrl. scrlcs 2a 1. 57
ltidio.
4sia. No. II (July 1'225) 308
The literature from the middle of the 71h to the 141h centuries belonged
to the time of Islamic domination in the Middle East. From the 8"' century
onwards many writers of the Syriac Churches preferred to write in Arabic
rather than Syriac. Arabic education remained in debt to the scholars of the
Christian dhimtnis all through the first hundred years of the Abbasid dynasty.
One of the reasons why Caliph Mahdi welcomed Timothy to debate was
undoubtedlj, that the Patriarch Timothy-I was a zealous patron of education,
familiar with Aristotle and well versed in Greek and Syriac texts.
Patriarch Timothy-1 presided as Patriarch for more than 40 years,
serving also under Mahdi's three successors. He was also a strongly
missionary minded, educated Patriarch, not content simply to teach and defend
the Christian faith. but eager to expand it. He was aware of the fact that in a
world that seemed ro be turning Muslim, to work co-operatively with them
rather than against the: :vould be better. His Patriachate coincided with the
great age of Muslim intellectual ferment and enquiry. When the Islamic
thinkers were first discovering the world of Greek science and philosophy, the
church in the West was in the process of forgetting it. One of the greatest
contributions of the Asian church to the history of human thought was its key
role in transmitting
1.)
the 'Arab empire the heritage of the Greek classics and,
through the Arabs. preserving then? for rediscovery and transformation of the
West in the lienaissance and Kcformation.
The best known of the scholars in philosophy and science is Hunayan
ibn Ishaq, whose normal practice was to translate first from Greek into Syriac
and then from Syriac into ilrabic. The reason was that one was able to benefit
from the experience of a long tradition of translating such Greek texts into
Syriac, while there was nn such tradition for translating from Greek into
Arabic and so it was easier to work from one Semitic language (Syriac) to
another Arabic.
It is a Sact that witli~nthree centuries of the rise of Islam, the Arab
world had appropriated through indivitiu~lscholars and through translations a
good deal of the science and learning which it found in Persia and in the
conquered Uyzitntine territories. The East Syrian Churches in these regions
enriched the cu1tur;il life of the Muslim world. Though their academies in
Nisibis and Seleucia were primarily theological institutions, with a strong
emphasis on Biblical studies. they reflected their interests in other sciences
also.
'Though the organized churches played no real part in cultural
transmission. the individual Christians were active in this enterprise and
deserve st least a passing notice
Man) of the texts of the Greek origin eventually reached Western
Europe by way of translations from Arabic into Latin made in Spain in the
twelfth century. Arabic was also the source of many other medieval
translations into Persian, Cireek. Spanish and Hebrew and it were through these
translations that the work reached Western Europe. Syriac scholars thus form
an important link in the chain of transmission of ancient Greek philosophy and
science to Western Europe.
Pioneering Christian Translators
It is self evident that if scientiiic and scholarly material was to have its
maximuni usefulness in the Muslim community it would have to be translated,
from whate\.cr language i t was, into Arabic. At the beginning of the rise of
lslam these materials were in Greek, Syriac, Pahlavi, and Sanskrit. Thus the
role of translators was paramount in the transmission of foreign learning into
the language of Isla111.I
The Arabs had been little schooled but were possessed of quick and
enquiring minds and werz propelled into an intellectual revo~ution.~
Some
astronomical and mathematical works were brought to Baghdad by travellers
from India, but the earliest i~ndby far the most important source was classical
I.
In the days of Khusro-I (53 1-57')) the nccd t j r translatiun was recognized. The king's physician
\+ho on bls return tu Ptrsiu truln a visir 1u India brought with him Indian works, presumanly in
Snilskr): I'hese hnd to he tr:lnslatcd it110 I'ahlavi
2
In onl)
.I
few decudcs Arab i c h i ~ l a r s;ibslm~l~tcd
:\hat had taken the Greeks cenluries to develop.
Greek con~murlicatedthrough Christian Greece to Christians Syrians and
Persians and passed on by them to the Arabs. One of the earliest translators
was Theophilus ibn Turna (785 .AD). who was an astrologer of Mahdi, the
Caliph who debated with Timothy-I. He translated parts of Homer's Iliad into
Arabic. Another was a Syrian Christian, Yuhanna ibn Masawayh (857 AD),
who translated medical books for Harun al-Rashid.
Anc~hertranslator was Hunayan ibn-Ishaq (809-873) who was a student
of Yuhanna and became the superintendent of the library and school of Caliph
Mamun (813-833 AD). He was responsible for all the court's scientific
translation projects where texts were usually translated first from Greek into
Syriac, which is the language of East Syrian Church and from Syriac into
Arabic.
Hunayan's son Ishaq who became the Arab empire's foremost
translator of the works of Aristotle did much of the translation into Arabic.
Hunayan himself is credited with translation of Galen, Hippocrates, Plate's
Republic, and many other works.'
In Scholarship and writing Arab Christians gained increasing respect
until as late as the I l th century.
The early East Syrian Christian missionaries
in Arabia are now believed to have first invented the Arabic scripts and East
Syrian Christians made contributions to the writings of the Quran. One of the
of the New Testament of the Bible is an Arabic
oldest known man~~scripts
translation of the Sv:-iac Peshitta from the 8Ih century.
The Fall of the Abbasid Caliphate
Bv the year 1000~L).the great Islamic empire of the Abbasid Caliphs
began to tall apart. They had wrested power from their kinsmen of the
Sever, books of Galci~'sastraiioni). losl i n the original Greck, have been preserved in Arabic. I t is
surpiiscd that Hunayan's version ofthe O!d 'Testament from the Greek Septuagint did not survive.
I.
:
It i s said hat Caliph paid to I l u n > \ m in gold thc wcight ofthe books lhc translated, so precious
irzrc ihc\ cons~dcrcc!
2.
Thc earliest surviving manuscrip? oithe Uiiii~ssoronof Torion rs in fact Abu- I-Faraj ibn Abdullali
al-Tayylb (1043A11) But thr tradition beglns centuries earlier.
1.
Among the Onhodoh Arab Chrlstiar, writzrs. John of Damascus (660-749 AD) and Theodore Abu
Qurra (750-825AD! must be mentioned
Umayyad dynastic line in 750AD and for the first hundred years of their rule
had raised Arab prestige and wealth to the greatest height the Arabs were ever
to achieve.
deteriorate.
I
But in actual power the Caliphate by 850AD had already begun to
Next for four centuries the empire shriveled away to a slow
humiliating death. In 1258AD Arab Baghdad fell to the Mongols. The decline
of Abbasid Caliphate was due to the presence of non-Muslim minorities in the
Empire such as Christians and Jews. Far more fatal were Islam's own
splintering tribal and national rivalries, its bloody battles over succession to
temporal power, and unresolved disputes about the center of spiritual authority
in Islamic law and theology. In fact, its Muslim overlords were preoccupied
with their own internal rivalries.
T h e Ecclesiastical position of the C h u r c h d u r i n g this period
The Muslim rulers readily accepted the existing position of the East They
continued to be the Ravah (Millet) 'People of protection', in the Caliph's
domain.' Under Islam, it was found necessary for religious, political and
economic reasons. By the time of Muslim control the East Syrian Church had
built up a consrderable minority place with in the I'ersian society, being
particularly s~gn~ticant
in the northwest. They were not allowed to fight in the
army, and ;n lieu ot military service they were subjected to a special tax known
as J~zya' I n the sex enth century Islam put a stop to the growth of Christianity
in Arabia and s l o ~ l yeliminated most of its churches. It is also said that
in the eighth century many of the remaining Christians were driven out by the
Muslims and removed to the lower course of the Euphrates.
I
Moffeu lii.\roty 377
2.
3.
I n any casc the Arab, iiad inhcritcd Ron) thc Sasanians, system o f recognizing religious minorities,
which seemed to be working reasonably wel!. 4s a dhimmi, or protected community, the Chrislians, had
their own rcsidentiai sectors, and . under the genemi sozcrainty ofMuslim law, were leit to order their
own aff311-s. i;i,t on)\ i.cclesiastical hut also. to .I ,:onstdciablc degree. their own l e g ~system.
l
!,I be appl~cdsulely to :hi pull tzx levied on dhim~nis. It is synonymous at first
with Kharq. while the lcim Kh;tr;~,i ::me to use !i:r the land tux, which was levied on Muslims and nonMuslims alike
: Vinc, C h i z r c l ~ u89.106
~.
Drown . Chrisrianity , 45
The term Jc-rri carnu
Metropolitan Sees
There were fifteen re~ognizedNestorian metropolitan provinces within
the 'Abbasid Empire'. jlmong them there were seven metropolitan provinces
in the Persian Empire, which were Kaskar, Nisibis, Teredon (Basra), Adiabene
(Arbil, i.e. Arebela) Garmaea (Kzkha) Khursan (Merv), Autropatene. By
1000AD. the list of the additional metropolitans in the Abbasid empire were
Fars (probably at Rewardashir before 650), Mosul (651) Holwan (754), later
including Hamadan) , Heart (eighth century ) Rai, near m Teheran (778) and
Dailan on he Caspian s h ~ r e(at Mukar about 780) Gaulldishapur (834 ) A r m
(at Bardaa about 000). Outside the Old Persian Empire, there were China
(Chang'an 636) Damascus (before end of seventh century) Turkestan
(Samarkand 781) India (800). A metropolitan of Jerusalem was named in 1065
to care for East Syrian Church pilgrims.
Decline of the East Syrian Church in the Abbasid Empire
There was a decline of the Last Syrian Church in the Abbasid empire
during thc time of caliphate of Mutawakkil (847 -861).'
In 849 Muttawakkil
abruptly deposed patriarch Theodosius. Quoting Bar Hebraeus,
(A jealous Christian) began out of hatred to accuse (the Patriarch
Theodosis). . . . . .and al-Mutawakkil was angry and command him (Theodosis)
to be deposed, and a month after his appointment sent to Baghdad and put in
prison. and proceeded to destroy the churches and monasteries.. ...
And hi. prevented thc Christians fiom riding on horses, and he comliianded
them to wear dyed garments and to put a patch upon their shirts, and that none
of them should be seen in the market on Friday, and that the graves of their
dead should be destroyed, and that their house-tax should be brought to the
mosque, and that the wooden images of devils should be erected on their
gates, and a sound summoning them prayer should not be heard, and place
should not be set apart for the liturgy.. . . ..2
1.
2.
Gibb.
C'ivilirorron
. IJI-150
:
Omark. i<riiphille, 136 -138 : Lewis, IsIan8 : Bishai,,Hislory
Brown, i'hristronrip. 54 quolcng fiom BarHebrarus. Chronican. 2 col. I92
The records of the Patriarchs were unpleasantly laced with stories of
ecclesiastical bribery and greed.' There were distressing evidences of
corruption of the monastic life, of schisms and insubordination, of then
heresies of the overly ascetic Messalians, of the decline of worship and liturgy,
which caubed confusion. Each country, town, and monastery and school had
its own hymns and songs of praise and tunes, and sang them (each) in its own
way. Monastery was poorly kept and its monks were utterly destitute .The
dhimmi sybtem protected as vcell as deprived. There were few martyrs, and no
underground church. Many fled mostly into Roman territory, but there were
few executions and no general massacres. The Christian patriarchs both
Nestorian and Syrian or tho do.^ still ruled in their seats of honour, and bishops
and priests freely preached and administered the sacraments.
The Attitude of Muslim rulers
There were restrictions imposed on the practice of the Christian
religion. but no prohibition of Christian faith and practice within the Christian
community
I
In return for such restraint, the rulers promised not to destroy or
loot already existing churches and monasteries or hinder or forbid Christian
worship in the churches in any way
During the relgn of'Caliph, Harun Al-Rashid, all churches were ordered
to be destroyed and the Christians to wear a special dress. It was the result of
the intermittent conflicts, which Persia continued with the Roman Empire.
The Muslims still regarded the Christians with suspicion, fearing that their
sympathies might bc with the enemy Dissatisfied with the conditions of their
life under thc Caliphcite, many Christians immigrated, mostly into the Roman
I.
:
Thomas ut hlarga reisled hoa llic pa;ri~rcl: Salibuacha tried to steal f r o n ~the monks o f Beit Abhc their
prrciouh u'py 01thr ijospci5 th.n was spicuJidly adorncd with gold and jewels. Thc Nrstorian
patriarch Ahrxham 111 ('~05-9?7;\il)ubcd lwgc .<urnsin bribes to the caliph to discrrdit his rival, tlic
Syrian Onhadox putrc,irch ui Z;itiocli, alnd l r l p from him rhc right to maintain a resident Syrian
Orthodox b~shopin Baghdad.
Thomas uf !vlarga. Book ofGo~zrn<irs2:22X -230
Browne ('hrt,rl;oniv. 57 Quoting from Bib~lothicaClricnialies 3 pt.2
.
Empire, hoping that they would be able to practice their faith with fewer
disabilities.
Dur~ng the Caliphate of Mutawakkil (846-861AD). the Christians
suffered from severe application of the oppressive laws. Christians were
commanded to wear distinctive gam~ents,with a patch on their shirts. They
were forbidden to ride on horseback, and were also forbidden to attend market
on Fridays. The graves of their dead were to be destroyed. Their children were
not allowed to attend the Muslim schools or be taught Arabic. A wooden
image of the devil h a s to be nailed to the door of every Christian house.
In addition, a number of churches and monasteries were demolished. In
spite of these anti-Christian measures, Mutawakkil retained his Christian
physicians. 'The most severe persecution during the period of Caliphate was
that of the mad Fatiinid Caliph al-Hakim which lasted for about eleven years
(1009-20AD). It appears that the motive of Hakirn was to give greater zeal for
Islam and he was particularly angry against the Christians and Jews because of
the important positions they held in the state and their insolent bearing towards
the Muslims.
In 1007 A D Hakinl began confiscating the property of churches and
publicly burning crosses. About the same time, he ordered little mosques to be
built on the roofs of the churches. Two years later, he issued an order for the
destruction of the church of the Holy Sepulcher at Jerusalem.
The order for
demolition uf this church had to be signed by a Christian Wazir.
Soon
afterwards 1 lakirn ordered the destruction of all churches and the arrest of all
bishops and prohibited anyone from trading with Christians. The destruction
of churches took place particularly from 1012-1014AD. The Jews also suffered
a like treatment. It is not surprising that large number of Christians became
Muslims. The geneml irripressions of' the decline of the East Syrian Church is
one of steady decline, accelerated by the troubled internal state of the
Caliphate during its later years, and in some districts culminating in final
extinction by Mongol invaiions of the early thirteenth century.
An evaluation of the Christian Church during this period
In the tenth and eleventh centuries, once more East Syrian Church
missionaries pushed tirelessly castward toward China from Merv and Hokhara
and Tashkent in Abbasid territory. They reported considerable success among
the Mongol tribes of the Keraits, Uighurs, Naimansm, and Merkits.The East
Syrian Church Patriarch in the capital. however, as head of the largest
community of
Christians in the empire, was still a figure of considerable
political influence.' Christians remained a majority of the population in some
Persian Arab provinces upto the ninth century and were eminent in both
scholarship and administration until the eleventh century. Arab Christians,
their presence and achievements in the first millennium hold lasting
significance later experienced whatever tribulations. Particular Christian Arabs
were then, being elevated to positions of authority.*
Many of the Christians held positions of leadership, in both church and
caliphate, or in medicine or scholarship would come from this small kingdom
and from Ghassan. Common features in Christian communities in north, east,
and southern Arabia. included the activity of monks, both as ascetics and
missionaries. When the Caliph reigned at Baghdad, the Christians who were
most powerful had a higher tradition of civilization than their masters. They
were used at courts as physicians, scribes, and secretaries. This body of
Church officials at court gets much influence and eventually had a great voice
in canonical matters and even electing the Patriarchs. Moffett gives the details
of the fluctuating role and states of Christian communities under ~slarn.~
I.
The Abbhasld caitphs Itad chosen Christiani as their doctors. This continued even into the eleventh
century Men likc All iil-Tabat I (cd 8541, were unablc m stand the pressures and left the faith. Rabari
was perso~ielphysician to Caliplis Mutaw;tkkil slid converted to Islam during the dillicult ycars oflhat
caliphate. 13y order of that 'hatcr oTChristians' he wrote the most effective and sustained defense of
Islam against Christian~ty.
2.
Christians \*ere ordcrcd to
:
3.
u c a i L cdistincl~\slirdlc around their waists so that they might not be
confused with Arabs. l.eter. a large yellow p;ttch on their outer garments, front and back, marked the
wearers as Christians,
Grifith , A w b . .3,8,10
:
Uanhold, Turh 214
Moffett , tliitor).. 325-361 : Harthold .Turks ,214
111
Christian laymen could be found in high positions and education and
government despite their second-class social status as dhimmis. They were
sought after as teachers and personal secretaries. The East Syrian Church
colleges at Nisibis and at Seleucia, where Plato and Aristotle were taught in
Syriac and later in Arabic. and it was this that Arabs became acquainted with
Greek learning.
Western Europe learned to know Aristotle through Arab
professors at Cordova and Salamanca in Spain.' The Arabs encouraged East
Syrian Church educational centres at Nisibis, Gundeshapur and Merv, for from
them came accountants, scribes, ~hysicians,teachers and interpreters to assist
the new rulers, with a good deal of responsibility for finances and local
administration left in the hands of local authorities. Arab Christian
monasticism was active, until the ninth century.
It is a fact that within three centuries of the rise of Islam, the Arab
world had appropriated through individual scholars and through translation a
good deal of the science and learning found in Persia and in the conquered
Byzantine territories. The Syrian Orthodox and Nestorian Churches as such
had little or no'interest in enriching the cultural life of the Muslim world.
Their academies. such as the Nestorian foundations in Nisibis and Seleucia,
were prinii~rilytheological institutions, with a strong emphasis on Biblical
studies, and such Iibrarieb as they had would reflect these interests .
Modem Scholars like Brett Knowles is of opinion that research is
needed in the following fields such as many sided roles of women, and their
obstacles, the Christian cc;ctributions and restrictions upon Christian officials
in the adm~nistrati~)n
of' Shah and Caliph, and the complex pressures and
motivations of Christianity further eastward along with the interactions of
~ regulations imposed
various agents, lay and ecclesiastical m o ~ e m e n t s .The
throughout the Persian and Arab territories upon non - Muslims, however,
I
Mc Culiiiugh.
?
Kn?wlc<, Tu (.'hi,i,;
( ' I i r i s r i a n i ~ I. X ?
progressively reduced both the numbers and the public roles of Christians.Yet
it was only in the wake of the crusades that antagonism between Christian and
Muslim become sharp enough to bring comprehensive discrimination and the
consequenl dismantling of Christian influence. The majority was Syriacspeaking people: but a significant numbers being of Iranian stock. The services
of educated Christians were again widely used in administration. The majority
of the physicians. a large proportion of the merchants and artisans were
Christians.
By the end of first millennium of Christian era, all across Asia, the
centres of civilization were crumpling and churches in Asia were in trouble. In
the East Syrian Church the status of nationally recognized body of Christians
was severally limited and its survival was precarious, though the ecclesiastical
jurisdiction covered the whole continent to India and China. The East Syrian
Church Patriarch in Baghdad counted the allegiance of some two hundred and
fifty bishops in Asia, twenty metropolitans, as many as twelve million
adherents out of a horld wide population of two hundred and seventy million
people and may be fifty million Christians . There were intermittent periods
of growth and eipansion upto 1000 A.D. This period be named the period of
Christian survival in Asia. not x~ictov.
Christian merchants and land owners still had great wealth and aroused
much envy, but h e a \ ~taxes were slowly squeezing. C!lristians denied social
equality and visible political influence at some occasions. Thus at the end of
the first Christian ~nillennium.the church was wounded, perhaps fatally and
declining.
Mort: o\:er there was taxation, social ostracism and deprivation of
political freedoms. Asia's Christians by the year IOOOAD had known the weight
of these burdens longer than any Christian community anywhere in the world
of that first millennium. Afier three hundred years under Islamic rule the
church of the dhimmis, though separated, battered, limited, and self-wounded,
was still surviving and still undefeated as part of the Christian Church.
**********
CHAPTER I1
THE FIRST CHRISTIAN MISSION TO CHINA
China was a thickly populated place, as it is now, the city of Chang-an,
the capital of Tang Dynasty (617-936AD) in China was world's largest city and
probably the world's first fully planned urban centre. It was a terminus of the
'Silk Road' on the Wai River in modem Shanxi, and the cultural capital of east
Asia, known throughout Asia and Europe for trade, its arts, its libraries,
embassies and religious activities. The land was prosperous and merchants and
the other residents from abroad appear to have been more interested in the area
served by the old trade route which led from Persia to Merv and from there to
China. '1t was along this route that most of silk merchandise was brought from
China to Persia and to the Roman world.
Chinese Rule through Dynasties
Shih Huang -11 (22 1-206 BC) styled by himself as the unifier of China,
sought to create a durable centralized empire. Former aristocrats were forced
to migrate to the new capital near Sian, destroyed in a single stroke their local
power and enabled the central government to govern. It was the beginning of a
dynasty rule.
I.
It was the Justmian's ttme that Constantinople began to be less dependent on this source for its silk.
Mc Cullough, Christioniiy, 180.
Procopies reports that some monks who had bccn in China, had brought Silk worm cggs and basic
technology of silk production to the Byzantine capital.
Procopies War5 Voi.8, xvii,
3
The following are the d>nasties rulcd in China. Chin dynasty (221-206 BC), Han dynasty (202 BC220AD) period of Disunton (220-58YAD). During this period short-lived dynasties were there. Such
as Liu Sung (420-479AD) the Ch'l(47Y-502ADj, the Liang (502-537AD), the Chin (557-589AD) Sui
dynasty (581-618AI)) Tang Dynasty 1618- 906AD) , Liang (907-923AD), Tang (923-936AD3, tlan
(947-950AD)
.
Dynil~tk
.
. (960-127YAD) Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368AD) In the 12" century w h ~ l eChina and
southern Sung Dynasties divided china, t h e ~ b n ~ owere
l s stiil scattered and is organized tribes to the
NoHh west without even a common name. Thz credit for unifvine
belanes to Genehis Khan and his
,
grandsons especially Kublai Khan.
: Sung
u
-
The Chinese empire attained its greatest brilliance under the T'ang
Dynasty (618-907AD). The Sung Dynasty (960-1276AD) fell to the Mongols
under Ghengis Khan and his grandson Kublai Khan in the thirteenth century.
Chinese rule was restored by the Ming dynasty in AD 1386, who in turn was
ousted in 1664 by the Manchu Dynasty.The period
Of
T'ang rule was a hike of
prosperity and peace. Chang'an (His-an-fu) was the capital of the empire. It
was the largest walled city ever built and about two million people lived in and
around the city.
Chinese Relationship with other Countries
The sixth century historian, Cosmos, wrote about the relationship of
China with other countries:
..:Now this county of silk is situated in the remotest of all the Indies, and
lies to the left of those who enter the Indian Sea, far beyond the Persian
Gulf, and the island called by the Indians Selediba and by the Greeks
~ r a ~ o b a n Ite ' is called Tzinitza @ and is surrounded on the left by the
Ocean, just as Barbaria is surrounded by it on the right. The Indian
philosophers called the Brachmans, say that if you stretch a cord from
Tzinitza to pass through Persia onward to the Roman dominions, the
middle of ihe earth would be quite correctly traced, and they are perhaps
right.. ..'
@~eledibais !vriNen rdter Sielidibu i r is island Ceylon, the name being so far changed
Fbr diba, or diva means island, hence Maldive just as Sielediva, signifies the island
Siele.iCeylonj
Tzinitzo is read Tsrtiu, or Sina, namely the country of the Sinoe, which a s Cosn~os
hrmseifat~ests,is bolinded by [he ocean of (he east. (Chino).
For centuries commerce between its (China's) millions and Central and
Western Asia had been carried on by way not only of the Sea, but also by over
land routes across what is now Sin Kiang and through the oasis of the Oxus
valley. 2
Officials fi.oni ever) part of'the great empire, travellers, merchants and
representatives of other countries were able to meet and exchange news and
opinions. People became receptive to new ideas and customs. In its seaports
I
Cosmos laphugrapiiy , Bouk 2 ,37-48
2
Latourettc
H~stork 275-276
there were large pennanenr comrnilnities of Arab, Persians, Indians and other.
foreign traders. people of many races, religious background.
Religious Background
Islam, Judaism, Christianity. Zoroastrianism, and Manichaeism were
found in the T' ang domains, each associated with its particular groups of
foreign adherents. Under the favourable conditions, each dynasty favoured the
introduction of new foreign cults to China but not their wide popularity.
Spiritual Reawakening
John Stewart refers to a tradition current among the records. According
to this tradition, among the Chinese of His-an-fu, a tradition referred to also in
Chinese records, in AD 64 the Chinese emperor Ming-ti, as the result of a
dream, sent messengers along one of the roads leading to the west to find out
who was the greatest prophet who had arisen in the West. They met two
Christian missionaries or. the way to the court and returned with them. The
missionaries remained there till they died six years later. The only relic of
their stay and teaching is to be found in a scripture of forty-two sections and a
logia of the New Testament
I
Christian Presence in Pre-Tang C h i n a
Regarding the presence of' the Christianity in China, from early times
western Christians have handed down tales and traditions of how the gospel
had been preached even to the Chinese: who lived at the end of the world.
Some would ascribe an indirect Christian influence on pre-T'ang and Tang
China, maintaining that Mahayana Buddhism, which developed in India
mainly in the northwestern area of Gandhara in the first centuries AD, was
1.
John Stauart, I well know11 rnlsslonary, ~csidentfor many years in Nanking, states that thcrc are
evidrnccs of a wide spread spiritual a w & m ~ n ghaving taken place in China in the latter part of the
first century A D . There is nothing to show, cither for or against, that it was definitely Christian, but
such a movement is [nore likely to have had a Christian origin than any other.
:
Stewilrt..Ili.rsronoryl~~nierpricrs
, 168, quoted fiom Church Quarterly Review vol. LXXV, 319.
We ;are nut surf: oftlie reliab~litv(ifthis tradition.
inspired by Christian ideas. In the coast cities of China Christian merchants
who had come by the sea from Mesopotamia and Syria might be expected. The
direct or indirect Christian influence on pre-T'ang China remains a matter of
conjecture. There are however, traces of Manichaean and Zoroastrian activities
in the China of that period. Manichaeans ofien followed the Christians in their
eastern mission. I
The Introduction of Christianity in China
The scholars differ about the origin and introduction of the Christianity
in China. Most of the scholars are of opinion that the introduction of Christian
faith in China may be the work of the East Syrian Christian missionaries from
Persia. Some authors also refer to the presence of families of traders from
Bactria settling at Lin-tao, Kansu in China in the sixth century. Arnobius refers
to the Christian presecce in China during 30OAD and their success among the
Seres through without substantiating it with any supporting evidence.
There
is also another tradition that St. Thomas brought the Christianity to China.
The Visit of St. Thomas to China
There was a tradition that before the martyrdom, St.Thomas lefi India and
'......set sail into China on board of Chinese ships.. ...and landed
at a town named Camballe, which is.. ..unknown to us.. ..'
Scholars like A.C. Moule did a critical study on this tradition3. According to
Moule, both the scholars of Latin and Syriac writers such as Francis Xavier, de
Cruz and de Gouivea, de Burros among the Latin writers and Ebed Jesus
among the Syrians, in the medieval period mention this tradition. A few
phrases in the Syriac h r e ~ i a qofien
,
quote as, 'by St Thomas, the Chinese also
-
--
- -
I.
Ian Christians. 167 quoted jrom Klirnheit. Die Begegnung von, Chrislenrurn, Gnosis
: hloule Chrisl~ons.68
Almond Medieval, 85
: Stewan, Missionary Eoterprises, 169
Mc Cullough , Christianiry , 180
2.
Moffelt , Hisfor?., 314, quo:cd
: Moulc . Christrons , 1 If.
:
3.
.
Mauls , C h n s t i o , ~22
~,
.
from Arnab~Disputaationum adversus Gentes Libri Octo , Xviiv.
Latourette , Histov .48-51
with the ~ t h o ~ i a have
n s turned to the truth. There was a tradition that before
the martyrdom, St. Thomas left India. This tradition seems to be based on
information gleaned from a breviary of the Syrian Malabar Church.
Here Latourette quotes.
. . . . ..'By the means of St.Thomas, the Chineses and Aethiopians were
converted to the tmth..By the means of %Thomas the Kingdom of Heaven
flew and entered into China.The Chinese, sin commemoration of St. Thomas
do offer their adoration unto thy most holy name, 0. God.'. ... ..I
The Reference if East Syrian Christian Presence
The reports of the East Syrian Church Synods of Mar Dadiso (424 AD),
Mar Aqaq (486AD), Mar Babai (497AD), Mar Joseph (554 AD), Mar Iso Yahb-I
(585 AD) indicate that there were bishops at China under the jurisdiction of the
East Syrian ~ h u r c h . 'The
~ Book of Governors' ',refers to several Journeys by
Bishops along, with the merchants to China from Persia.
An East Syrian Church family bearing the name of Mar Sargis is said to
have come to Lin-t'ao. Kan-su as early as 578 AD, and east Syrian Christians
are reported to have appeared at the court of the emperor of China in Chenkuan period4. Thomas of Marga
records that during the time of Patriarch
Timothy-I(780-820AD) that the C:atholicos had consecrated one David as
Metropolitan of chinas.
I
This breviary, however, was cumposed in or after the thirteenth century. Latourette points out that 'the
tradition may hare arisen from the reports of envoys of the Malabar Church who visited Cambalue
(Peking) [i.e. Khan Baliq] in AD 1282 and who may have met the East Syrian Christians who resided
there under the Mongols. But these cannot be proved to trace back further than a seventh-century
revision of the East Syrian liturgy. hy which time East Syrian missions had already reached China
: Latoiirette . Hisioty , 49
: Moffeti . H i s l o p . 3 14, quoicd from .J Li ( ; / e n Htsroire orientale des grondsprogress de I'eglise
Carholique. Aponolique ri K,,,nnine. I h0Y 3,4, 6-9.
3.
Uuok of Gover~iors.Vol 2 . 506-507
4.
Outerbridge. Cliino, 35-30
5.
Haoh of Governors, Voi 2. 458
T h e Entry of the East Syrian Christians in the Chinese Empire
The first recorded mission is known to have taken place during the
Catholicos Yeshuyab- I1 (628-43AD), which is inscribed in a stone monument.
It was discovered in 1623AD by Jesuit missionaries at Sian-fustele (Si-ngnan-
fu) in the province of Shensi in middle China. On the broad face of the
Monument. It was inscribed as :
'When the accomplished Emperor Tai-tsung (627-649 AD) began his
magnificent career in glory and splendour ....behold there was a highly
virtuous man named Alopen in the Kingdom of Ta-ch-in. Auguring from
the azure sky he decided to carry the true Sutras with him, and observing
the course of the winds, he made his way through difficulties and perils.
Thus in the ninth year of the period named Chen-Kuan (635AD) he arrived
at Changan. The Emperor despatched his Minister, Duke Fang Hsuan-ling
with a guard of honour, to the western suburb to meet the visitor and
conduct him to the Palace. The Sutras were translated in the Imperial
Library. (His Majesty) investigated the Way in his own forbidden
apartments, and being deeply convinced of its correctness and truth, he
gave special orders for its propagation.'
'
'
The Monument states that one 'Aloppen' arrived from the land of DaQin the Mediterranean world 635 AD. The monk Alopen was sent by
Catholicos Ishoyabh-I1 of Seleucia who was facing the problems from the
aftermath of Great War between Persia and East Rome. The central
government had collapsed. There was a plague and flood at Mesopotamia.
East Syrian Church bishops had a decisive role to act on all these issues. The
donor of the monument is Yazedbouzid, (Yisi in Chinese) a Christian Monk,
whose family originally came from the city of Balkh, capital of
1 . Sack,, Oocumenr. 84
act ria^
: Luggc. .Monument. 3-31 :Moule, Chrisfiuns34-58 :Foster, Dynasy, 134-151
2.
The tablet is headed with an inscribed (Persian) cross standing in a lotus blossom and edged with flame,
flowers and cloud formation. its measurement is 4 feet high, 3 feet 4 inch wide and one foot deep, The
inscribed text consists of 1900 Chinese characters along with seventy words of Syriac and approximately
80 names of bishops, presbyters, monks and others in both Syriac and Chinese.
3.
Ya~edhouzidwas at one lime a high-rank~ngmilitary officer and Lieutenant Governor of the northern
region It is said that he gave Christian monasteries objects of rock crystal , carpets, cloth and gold,
which the emperor had glven him, a uell as money for the restoration, and enlarging of the monstery
buildings
James Legge gives a summary of the monument in the following lines
I.
The contents are three fold: Doctrinal, Historical, Eulogistic. The first part
gives a brief outline of the teachings of the religion, and the ways and practices
of its ministers. The second part tells of its first entrance into China, and
patronage extended to
it
for nearly hundred and fifty years by various
emperors. In the third part, the Christians express in verse their praise of God
and their religion. and also of the emperors whose protection and favours they
had enjoyed.
It contains the teaching on creation, the fall, the birth of Jesus who is
described as establishing good works, saving activities, right faith, unfolding
life and abolishing death. It includes the Ascension of Jesus Christ, the work
of the Holy Spirit, the Twenty Seven Books of the Scriptures, Holy Baptism
and the seal of the Cross. It gives the description about the Tachin ministers
and monks. Patterns of worship in the churches such as the sacrament of
Baptism, week.1~offering-presumably Eucharist and offices of prayer upto
seven times a day.' It also records the emperor's proclamation of the way of
salvation and the establishment of a Tachin monastery. The growing number
of the monasteries led to the controversy with Sakhya people (Buddhist) and
the destruction of some monasteries. These were restored under renewed by
the imperial orders.
Authenticity of the Monument
There are some controversies regarding the genuineness of the
Nestorian Monument. Some hold it as authentic. Some others say it is forgery.
John stewart) brought the arguments of both Voltaire and Huc.According to
Voltaire; it was nothing but a pious fraud of the Jesuits to deceive the Chinese.
But Huc insists on the genuineness of the Monument. It was unable to discover
I.
Saeki
. Documonis. .i6
2.
John . fftsiov,
3.
Stewart. M~ssionnryEnIerpnces,17 1
the slightest hints of suspicion as to its genuineness or authenticity. Scholars
like Dr.Wall and Dr.Legge question its veracity of the monument. The Syriac
part of the inscription is genuine but that the Chinese portion is a modern
fabrication meant to save the face of the Chinese Mandarins, which the Jesuit
missionaries shared. As the mandarins were unable to decipher the original
they made a copy of the stone, substituted a new inscription for the illegible
Chinese part and then did away with the original altogether. I
Nothing is said about the miracles of Christ or anything specially
bearing on His crucifixion, death or resurrection. There is a little in it,
particularly ritualistic but there is nothing at all evangelical.
It is noteworthy that no single event connected with the life of Christ
between His birth and death is referred to, and even the latter is referred to
only very indirectly. Secondly, the flattery paid to the Chinese emperors and
the exultation with which the erection of their images in the churches,
apparently for the purpose of worship, is spoken of. This alone is sufficient to
rule out the genuineness of the inscription, for the East Syrian Christians have
never at any time tolerated the worship of images of any kind,either of
emperors or saints. nor do they tolerate a crucifix although they show high
reverence to the cross as the symbol of their faith. Thirdly, the characters of
Chinese part of the inscription dealing with the proper names incorporated in
it.
Chinese writing is obscure and extremely vague, and because of its
ideographic character it is liable to become illegible.3
1.
Stewart, A4issionory E n r e r p a e s , 173
2.
Scholars like E.E. Salisbury, professor of Arabic and Sanskrit in Yale, U S , and Professor C.F.
Neumann, suggest that the Nestorian monument is now generally regarded by the learned as a
forgr~y.They hold that both the Chines and Syriac characters on the inscription were modem, not
such as were in use in the eighth century
3.
:
Wylie. Researcizes. 73. quoted in Straon. Missionary Enlerprixes, 173.
:
Huc, Chrtslianiry 81. Wn!l. Jzwish. 160. quoted in Stewart, M i s r i o n o ~Enterprises,\, 173
Gibbon . iiisroty , 16
The scholars like 1-luc, Wall and Wylie insist on the genuineness of the
Monument. They argue that it was unable to discover the slightest hints of
suspicion as to its genuineness or authenticity. Wall holds that the Syriac part
of the inscription is genuine. The arguments given by Wall for the authenticity
of this part of the inscription are: first, two of the persons engaged in the
erection of the monument were sons of clergymen and one of them was even
the son of a chorepiscopus.
If the Jesu~tshad fabricated the Syriac part of the inscription they
would not have inserted in it a fact
30
directly opposed in a very important
particular to the practice of their representatives (viz., the celibacy of the
clergy). Secondly, it is stated, the monument was erected in 1092 of the Greek
era (viz. A.D 781), but the Patriarch Anahjesu died in the year 778 A.D.
showing that the authors of the inscription did not hear of his death for more
than two years after it happened, a delay that can easily be accounted for by
their distance from Baghdad. Had the Monument been concocted, the men
behind it would have been particular to insert the name of the patriarch who
actually was the head of the church at that time.
It
is
true that there is litrle evidence of the serious deterioration of
Orthodoxy since the founding of the mission. On examination, what was
written on the stone is as orthodox as what was written by the first
missionar~esa century and more earlier. Then follows in orthodox order the
doctrines of creation, of human nature as created originally good of sin and the
Fall, and of salbation through the Messiah, 'the lord of the Universe' who was
born of a virgin and appeared upon earth as a man. ' There are more passages
clearly suggest compromise and accommodation beyond the usually
acceptable limits of missionar-- adaptation.
I.
The long inwiption begins with an unmistAab1y Trinitarian statement: 'There is one . . . .the origin of the
c
person. This can be taken as a reference to the tirst
Origins . . . .our Aloha (God) the T r i ~ ~ nmyserious
person of the Trinlty, since the next two ,mentions of the Trinity focusing order on the Son (one Person
of our Trinity, the Messiah) and on the fluly Spirit' (the Holy Spirit, anolher Person of the Trinity).
The name Buddha is used to frequently for 'God' in the earliest
document, the 'Jesus-Messiah ~ u t r a ' . 'The Buddhas as well as the Kinnaras
and the Superintending Devas and .4rhans are used for the Lord of Heaven the
angels and the archangels. The mysteries of Chinese ideographs, when the
emperor suddenly ordered them to translate their sacred books it would be no
surprise if the name of the Lord could become 'the name of Buddha' without
'
their even noticing the difference. There is no mention of Christ's crucifixion
death, and resurrection on the tablet.
'
The monument's inscription is the most authentic of all the sources of
our knowiedge of T'ang-dynasty Christianity. It contains the most systematic
condensation of the theology of the period. The gospel is diluted to Chinese
minds by the missionary attempt to accommodate Christian truth to Chinese
language and irnagery. We cannot but deplore the absence from the inscription
of all mention of some of the most important and even fundamental truths of
the Christian system.
One cannot ignore the fact the paragraphs on Christian life are a
satisfying balance of piety and social responsibility, of worship and witness.
There is a call ro evangeli~eand a repudiation of slavery, a summons to prayer
and a challenge to give up personal wealth for the sake of the poor, a
declaration that all people are equal and a reminder to the faithful that seven
times a day they should pause for worship and for praise. It is in the section on
.
I
. ---
Legge, 1)ocumenls. I4
2. To the Chinese, the best tra114atlon of ansels and archangels and hosts of heavcn'may well have been
'Buddhas, Kinnaras, and Super~nier~ding
Devas.' For the missionaries in those first few months in China
while they were sti!I suffering from the initial shock of exposure.
3.
There is llrtle ernphasls on :he centrality 01 Scripture, which wzs so basic a premise of Nestorian
theologicdl studies in Persia. But we cannot expect a complete systematic theology to be written on the
face of even a reasonably large stone slab, and the crucifixion, death and resurrection of the Lord are all
amply emphasized in the other Nestorian documents of the time. Indeed the first of the documents, the
Jesus Messiah Sutra. contains clear warning against the syncretistic pluralism of those who say we have
our uwn each special Lord of lleavcn.
: Moulr. Chrislions . 37n, 20
:
\\;ilie, h{onurnenr, 187 :
Saeki , Nestorion. 127
salvation that the borrowings from non-Christian religious concepts are most
prominent and troubling.
This inscription furnished conclusive evidence of the existence of
considerable Clhristian communities in China in the seventh and eight
Centuries. There is no doubt that it is a monument put up by East Syrian
Christians in honour of their religion. On the whole, the East Syrian Christians
encountered no serious oppositions to the preaching of Christianity in China
during the seventh and eighth centuries. It was in the ninth century that this
suffered, together with other foreign religions.
The attitude of the emperor towards the Missionaries
The T'ang emperor welcomed Alopen warmly. In the year 626 AD, Kaotsu's econd son of T'ang emperor, T'ai-tsung, seized power, assassinating his
elder brother the crown prince and forcing his father to abdicate. The twentytwo years of his reign was a period of wide religious toleration for the sake of
political stability. They were given permission by proclamation in 638AD to
stay and teach. Three years later the emperor issued an edict of universal
toleration, carefully neutral but specifically granting approval to the
propagation of Christianity throughout the empire.
?'he Way had not, at all times and in all places, the selfsame name , the
Sage had not, at all times and in all places, the selfsame human body.
(Heaven) caused a suitable religion to be instituted for every region and
clime so that each one of the races of mankind might be saved. Bishop
Alopen of the Kingdom of Ta- chin, bringing with him the Sutras and
Images, has come from afar and presented them at our Capital. Having
carefully examined the scope of his teaching, we find it to be
mysteriously spiritual, and of silent operation. Having observed its
principal and most essential points, we reached the conclusion that they
cover all that is most important in life. Their language is free from
perplexing expressions, their principle are so simple that they remain as
the fish would remain (if) the net (of language ) were forgotten. This
teaching is helpful to all creatures and beneficial to all men. So let it have a
free course throughout the Empire. I
I.
Nestorian, L)ocunrenis. 57 f 456.
:
fwnchctt Perspectives 16,
: Foster, Dynasly, 39.
One reason for this tolerant attitude, apart from its political uses, may
well have been the emperor's intense interest in a revival of learning. He was
not only a warrior but also a patron of the arts. The emperor was interested
with the new faith of the East Syrian Church missionaries had brought in his
empire because they brought a book of their religion. He broughthim into the
library, and ordered him to begin translating his scriptures.
'
It was an
auspicious beginning for the Christian mission to China.
In the year of the edict of toleration, 638 AD the first Christian church
was built in China at the capital Chang'an, the largest city in the world. The
emperor himself gave orders for its construction with funds from his own
treasury. As a mark of special honor he sent his portrait to be hung on the
church wall. By that time, according to the edict, there were twenty-one
monks in China, probably all Persian.
2
The Chinese East Syrian Church Texts of the T'ang Period
During the regular preaching tours, the monks translated the Christian
scriptures, hymns and other writings, churches and hermitages. From the
writings and inscriptions, it is clear that a number of Christians were active in
the leadership of Chang-an Christians during T'ang Dynasty. The texts also
demonstrate that Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist terminology was not
considered alien to the expression of Christian truth which is here seen in
dialogue with other standards of Chinese culture.'
In the famous grottoes of
Tunhuang, a huge hoard of seventeen manuscripts was found at the beginning
of the twentieth century in a walled up little chapel
I.
The library the emperor built in his capital next to his palace is said to have contained two hundred
thousand v o l u m s and must have been as impressi\,e as any library in the world of that time, including
the grcat libraiy of Alexandrra. Hc kept e~ghteendistinguished scholars in the library working on a
standard cdition of the Confucian texts and commerltaries.
Foster, L)ynasg,, 39
2.
Malech, Hlsror), 273
They contained secular, Buddhist, Manichean and Christian documents
which must have been written before the beginning of the eleventh century
when the cave was sealed he book, 'A Hymn to the Trinity', called 'Hymn
of the Saved in Praise of the Triune God', identified with the East Syrian form
of the Gloria in ' Excelsis Deop', translated in Tang times. The Book of Priase,
which is a historical note, contains list of saints and scruptures. To other
documents, found at Tunchuang, which belonged to those translated by A-lopen. Their titles are 'The Jesus Messiah Sutra', (635-638 AD) and a 'Discourse
on Monotheism', (641-642 AD). This hymn must have been composed in the
beginning of the eighth century. The copy preserved, written by one Su-yuan
of the 'Ta-ch' in the temple of Shachow in Kansu, bears a colophon with the
date 720 AD.
When T'ai-tsung died in 649, he was succeeded by his son Kao-tsung
(649-683 AD) who, following in his father's footsepts continued to favor the
East Syrian Christians. He added that 'the final embellishment to the true sect
'according to the Monument Tablet. He claimed that he established illustrious
monasteries. There are, however, records of a at least eleven such churches in
I.
Thesc documents, now kept in the British Museum in London and Bibliotheque National i n Paris.
: Among the Paris texts is a roll o f Christian origin, which found in Tunhuange by Pelliot in 1908. I t
was probably written in Chang-an
:
:
2.
The library scholar PPelliot says that for scaling of it was due to the advance o f the Tanguts.
M A . Stain thought that it was a dcposit of cawed wastc.
Fuyieda : The Tung liuang hlanuscripts. A ysneral description Part 1,15 Drake , Nestorion, 291-300.
F S Drakr renders thc following titles. ' ! h r !'arable Part', 'The Discourse on the One Ruler o f the
Universe. Part'. 'The Lord o f t h c Universe's Discourse on Almsgiving, Part'.
: The A-lo-pen texts, which stctn lrom the bcginn~ngof the Nestorian mission in China, u e not easily
understandable. Their style is so clumsily. their content so dark, that for this reason every translation
becomes a paraphase and there can be no doubt that they do not belong to the Ching-Ching literature.
: Ian, Chrisl~onr27
3.
:
:
P.Y.Sacki points out that thc 'Icsus Messiah Sutra' must have been the first work written by a A-lopen, containing a 'surprisingly complerc outline of the fundamental doctrine o f Christianity", for
introducing to the emperor T'ai-tsung about the principals to the Nestorian faith.
The A-lo-pen texts contain several Syriac words in Chinese phonetization, words like "Jehova',
'Messiah', and names of Biblical persons and geographical places. But also Sanskrit words, probably
taken from Buddhist scriptures and written in Chinese phonetization, are used.
Sacki . Docurnen!. 265
128
that period, and here m y well have been more. There were two in Chang'an,
and one each in Loyang, Chou-chin, Chengtu and Mt Omei, Lingwu, and four
other places. 1
Beginning of Persecution
Despite these signs of progress, omens of difficulties to come began to
appear in the long reign of Kao-tsung. Though like his father he was tolerant
towards Christians, but he became increasingly inclined to favour Buddhism
through the personal pressure from his second wife, the empress Wu and her
family. * At the time of the flourishing of Christianity in China, there were ups
and downs during these centuries
For the sake of political stability the
emperors showed wide religious toleration. All of them tried to balance the
competing claims of China's three major faiths Buddhism, Taoism and
Confucianism. An unplanned byproduct of this toleration was the introduction
of other faiths from Persia, such as Zoroastrianism Manichaeism and
Christianity
'.
Wu Hou deposed her two sons from the throne in quick succession and
took power herself, setting up a new dynasty (690-705 AD) in her own name.
Wu Hou, powerful, single-minded, and selfish, took a Buddhist monk as a
lover, but despite this flouting of Buddhist conventions she remained
fanatically pro-Buddhist, and in return the Buddhists hailed her as an
~ officially declared
incarnation of their saviour, the Maitreya B ~ d d h a .She
Buddhism the state religion in 691 AD and about the same time apparently
began privately to encourage opposition to the Christians. By the death of the
emperor, in 683AI1, the first days of the growth for the Church in China ended
The number is probably a p u s exaggemtinn. for that would mean 358 Nestorian monasteries or churches
in China in the last half of rhe seventh century
2. W e ~ n s l s ~ nBuddhism,
,
264
I.
3
Sark~.Uocuntenr 369
4
Mac (>owan.Hzsrory, 302
Under the Buddhist empress Wu Hou, the days of persecution began.'
Persecution began in 698A1.1, when the mobs sacked the Christian church or
monastery in the eastern capital. Lo-Yang, which had been a Buddhist
stronghold fbr six hundred year2. Outright persecution was never official but
within fourteen years it had reached the western capital at Chang'an where
hostile crowds were allowed to invade and violate the historic Nestorian
church in the westward ofthc city, the first Christian church in china.'
Recovery of the church (712-781 AD)
The empire fell into disorder until a capable grandson,the emperor
Husuantsung ascended the throne for the longest reign of the T'ang dynasty
(712-756 AD). The persecution was over. For the church this was a period of
recovery, but for China it provided to be the beginning of gradual decline of its
Empire, which now was ihrced to confront on its western borders the rise of a
rapidly expanding world power the Arabs.
The Church in Chiaa during the period between 712-781AD
It is a period of progress in China, than in any other period of the two
and a half centuries of the life of this first community of Christians in China.
The Nestorian Tablet proudlq reports the restoration of church buildings, and
the granting of imperial portraits to be hung in them, and its authors express
their exultation at these signs of a return to court favour in extravagant prose4.
Five royal brothers of the emperor had come in procession to inspect the
rebuilding of the ravaged church, an unprecedented sign of favour.
2.
1
Paul Pelliot reports th&ta pro laoist emperor started inb persecuting Christians along with Zoroastrians
and Manichaepns. Christim monks and nuns were then evicted from their monasteries and forced to seek
a seculat living and their properties were confiscated. Books and artifacts were destroyed. The leaders
were forced to flee or hide. Missions from the East Syrian church head quarters strengthened the
churches in some provinces, but evidence for thsir condition or survival throughout former T'ang
provinces is fragnlentary.
: Pelliot, Christianity, 305.
Foster. Church, 39
A New name for C h r i s t i a n C h u r c h
In October 745AI) the official Chinese name for the Christian religion
was changed from 'the Persian religion" to "the Syrian (Ta-ch'in) religion,' It
may be perhaps in belated recognition that the capital of the Arab Empire had
moved in 661under the Umayyad Caliphate to Syrian Damascus from its
earlier Arab power bases, Medina and Kufa. This was a help to the Christian
missionaries who were often confused with the adherents of the Persian
religions, Zoroastrianism and Manichaeism
The imperial edict of Emperor Hsuan-tsung reads thus:
'the Persian religion of the scriptures, starting from Ta-ch'in and coming
to preach and practice, has long existed in the Middle Kingdom. When
they first built monasteries, ["Persian"] was consequently taken for the
name. Wishing to show men the necessity of correct knowledge of the
original [we decree that] the Persian Monasteries at the two capitals must
be changed to Ta-ch'in [Syrian] Monasteries. Those which are founded in
[other] departments and districts of the empire will also observe this.'
T h e decline of Tang D y n a s t y
But while the Church was basking in royal favour, the dynasty was
weakening politically despile its apparent recovery from the usurpation of
Empress Wu. Her grandson Hsuan-tsung's long reign, which started so
auspiciously, ended in disaster. It was the beginning of the decline of the
T'ang dynasty but was only a grim revelation of corruptions, loss of central
control, and weakening loyalties that had been building up for years. In 755AD
a Turkish General of the Emperor revolted, seized and sacked the capital,
destroying the great library. The seventy-year-old emperor had no will left to
fight.
Three foreign religions visibly flourished in the later half of the eighth
century. The first, always thz strongest and new come, was Buddhism, which
was regulated but supported h:., the emperor and was popular in his royal army.
The second, the latest arrival, was Islam, which was the religion of an Arab
army sen1 by the Caliph in Baghdad as a gesture of friendship from internal
divisions in the Islamic homeland had ended a century of almost unbroken
Arab military expansion. The third was East Syrian Christianity, which, along
with its some time looks alike Manichaeism, was becoming the religion of
many of the Emperors Uighur allies'.
Through the persistent lahour of East Syrian missionaries - both priests
and traders - on the Old Silk Road. the Christian faith had spread widely
among this war like tribe. Much of the favour, the East Syrian Church enjoyed
at court during the latter half of eighth century may well, have been due to the
patronage of the powerful leader the emperor Tai-t'sung and his impressive
family2. Christianity was well known in China during at least two out of the
three centuries of the T'ang Dynasty and China was at least practically under
Christian influence during the period.
The reference to an organized Church in China
In the records of East Syrian Synods there is no mention of China. The
earliest mention among the East Syrian Church to an organized Chinese East
Syrian church is a passing reference in a letter of the Patriarch Timothy- I,
after
XI AD.^ There is no definite information as to when an East Syrian
Metropolitan was first appointed to China. Some claim that one which sent by
the Patriarch Akha (AD 3:O-415) or by Silas (ADS03-520). Ibn at-Tayib who
died AD1043 was responsible tor the statement that the bishoprics of
Samarqand, India
I.
The Uighurs formed a seinl autonomous empire in 744 that control the Silk Road and adopted
Man~chaeism aj 11s state religion ahout 762. findirrg that faith more religiously flexible than
Christianity.
: Hc had eight sons and seven sons-in-la\+, all in high position in government and by the time he died at
the age of 85 earl) in the rclgn of Tc-tsung (called Chien-chung on the tablet), his extended family is
said lo have numbercd three thousand.
3.
Molklt. ilislory, ? q O , Quol;<l iioni Dauvillcr. Temoignages 2 -165
and China were elevated to the rank of Metropolitan sees by the Patriarch
Yashuyab-11 (628-44AD).
Still another Metropolitan is said to have been
appointed by the Patriarch Saliba Zacha (714-728AD). The letter referred to
above written by the Patriarch Timothy in 781AD mentions the then
Metropolitan of China had just died. Thomas of Marga the secretary of East
Syrian Patriarch in Baghdad (832-901AD) cites the letter of Mar Timothy as the
source of information about David, Metropolitan of Beth Sinaye (China).
According to W.G. Young, the Metropolitanate in China was probably
not created until after 650AD. Patriarch Saliba - Zakha did it between 712 and
728AD. The seat of the metropolitan must have been Changan and East Syrian
bishop Chi-lieh who accompanied an Arab embassy to China in 713AD and
reached the capital in 732AD may do official announcement'.
S.H. Moffet comments about this and concludes that there is no record
in any Persian Church sources of actual appointment of the first metropolitan
of China2. 3. Stewart says that there is no record to show how long there
continued to be only one Metropolitan for China. But about 1093 AD the
Patriarch Sabrish-111 appointed a certain bishop1 George to Seistan and from
there transferred him to Khatai in North China-the fourth metropolitan see of
the Far ~ a s r Almost
~.
all rnformation about the East Syrian Christian came
from documents in the Chinese language points to a degree of successful
rootage in the national culture. It may had far reaching effect than the rare
glimpses of it that survive can convey.
The various attempts to explain the cause of the collapse of the Chinese
Church have resulted in several reasons. However, it should probably be that
the decisive factor was ne~therreligrous persecution, nor even its foreignness
I.
Young. i'otriorch
2
Moffett , Hisrow, 296
3
SIewurr
Ihssiot!ar?.Enrerpirser . 189
nor theolog~cal compromise, hut rather the fall of an imperial house on
which the church had too long relied for its patronage and protection.
I
Disappearance of the Christianity from China and its reasons
By the fall of the T'ang dynasty in 907AD, the East Syrian church began
to vanish from its beac head in China. In the period of the Sung Dynasty (9601279 AD), China had grown extremely introverted, severing ties with foreign
forces, both political and religious.
In the year 377 ( ,ID 987) , in the Christian quarter ( of Baghdad ) behind
the Church, I met a monk from Najran who seven years before had been
sent by the Catholicos to China with five other clergy to set order the
affairs of the Christian church.. . I asked him for some information about
his journey and he told me that Christianity was just extinct in China; the
native Christians had perished in one way or another. The church which
they had used had been destroyed and there was only one Christian left in
the land2.
The monk having tbund no one remaining to whom his ministry could
be of any use returned more quickly than he went.' This seems to be last
information on Christians in the aftermath of the Tang Church.
During the Sung dynasty period, the Chinese culture developed
unusually rapidly. An agricultural and commercial revolution based on
technological develop~aents hrought greatly increased productivity. The
founder of the dynasty. Tai Tsu subdued the warlords who had restricted
central authority and fixed the principle of civilian control over the military in
the Chinese traditions.
The influence of Confucianism
Neo-Confucianism. as synthesized by Chu Hsi became the dominant
philosophy in China during this period. Though Confucius was not a founder
of the religion (Confucianism), in the usual sense, Confucianism had
sometimes been called a religion it possessed a keen sense of universal moral
force, which Confucius spoke of as heaven and the will of heaven. The
supremacy of the teachings of the Confucius was established shortly before the
beginning of the Christian era. Confucianism has been served as the official
creed or state cult and has even been regarded as a religion of China.
This niay lead the decline of Christianity in China during this period.
Since Christianity was borne mainly by foreigners, and since it was heavily
dependent on the monastic centres where they lived, the elimination of these
centres spelt out the end of the first Christian period in China. An Arab record
written at the end of the tenth century reads.
Religious Persecution
Religious persecution fell upon the East Syrian Church in the ninth
century. For the most part the) were not specifically anti-Christian but were
part of a rising tide of xenophobia and sectarian religious strife that grew in
direct proportion to the weakening of national unity under a succession of
ineffectual emperors. The most severe religious persecutions in the entire
history of the usually tolerant T'ang dynasty occurred between (840-846AD) in
the reign of the moodj and superstitious emperor Wu-tsung. They were
directed against what Confucianists branded as the followers of 'foreign
religions', primarily Buddhists, but also Manichaeans and ~hristiansl.
But in the early 8TOb.D a rival tribe, the Kirghiz Turks clashed with the
Uighurs for control of central Asia and defeated them, driving some as
refugees lnto China proper. while others survived in scattered groups around
I.
They had come to China tiom I'crsia under the protection of the Uighur "empire" whose central Asiatic
cavalry had helped the T'ang Dynasty's rlse to imperial power. For two hundred years Uighur Khans
were thc loyal allies m d principal military support of the Chinese against the restless, encroaching tribes
of the northwest. Missions from Persia. both Nestorim and Manichaems were apparently somewhat
mare successfully than thc Christians. a1 least in the Uighur Capital.
: Latourrne. llislor,;. 58: busrcr, Chrrri.1~. 1 16
: Saeki, Mission, 30, 1959
the Tarirn River basin. 4 decree of Wu-tsung in 843AD directed the
confiscation of Manichaean books. the public burning of their images and
appropriation of their property by the government.' This has a direct impact
on the Christians in China. An atmosphere, which was very hostile towards
foreign religions, thus prevailed during the period, which even terrorised the
Christian followers.
Theological issues - the Christian faith Diluted and communicated
Some say that the church diluted the doctrines of the Christian faith.
Hundreds of ancient manuscripts and written fragments of Christian
documents were found behind a wall in a Buddhist cave temple at the Tun
-
huang Oasis and Turfan on the Silk Road trade route. The interfaith
collaboration. both in the missionary and theological fields, diluted the
Christian faith which resulted the failure of communication of Christianity to
the grass root level on the soil of China.
Chinese Christian Church - a Church of foreigners
.4nother explanation given for the disappearance of the Church in
China was that it never became Chinese; it remained a church of foreigners.
The missionaries were Persian. Their names on the monument are entirely
Syriac or the Chinese equivalents for Syriac names. The last glimpses of the
Church, from the Tun-huang and Turfan discoveries, come not from the
Chinese center but from tribal territory in central Asia.
Dependence oa Government
The Tang dynasty. towards the end of their reign, no longer had the
power, that had once opened up China. to foreign religions and had largely
I
Mackrrras. tmprre, ib8,232
: In Chang'an seventy Manichacan Woincn, probably nuns, were put to death. It is not at all improbable
that some US the hatred spilled over into the t.lestorians, who were also Persian in origin and often
confused wuh the Manichaeans. 'The decrce goes on to state that more than three thousand Nestorian
and Zoruastr~anpriests ur monks were compelled to "return to the world".
: Foster, Church . 121
: Twitchicst . Siu 1'01 3, 46-47.
protected them, for a century and a half. It never again quite so completely
controlled the restless tribes on the central Asiatic border or the powerful
warlords that kept order in the outer provinces at the price of social
regionalism. In the last quarter of the ninth century the centre itself began to
slip into decline. Palace eunuchs usurped more and more of the powers of the
weakening throne'. The direct impact of the decline of the power of the Tang
dynasty on Christianity was its own decline. Dependence on government
became dangerous and uncertain foundation for Christian survival. When a
Church writes 'Obey the Emperol. into its version of the Ten Commandments
it is writing a recipe for its own destruction.
End of an Era
The last T'ang emperor, a fourteen-year-old boy, saw all his nine
brothers put to death by the commander of his army, and shortly thereafter,
fearing for his own life, he abdicated in 907. Thus ended the greatest dynasty
China has ever known, as the protector of religious liberties and the friend of
Christians. As it disappeared, the church, which had relied too much upon its
favour, disappeared with it in the violence and civil wars of the age of 'the ten
kingdoms' and 'the five dynasties'. The discouraged East Syrian Church monk
in the Christian quarter of Baghdad was probably right in 987AD when he said
that there is not a single Christian left in China. Thus the first wave of
Christian advance to the Far East came in with one change of the political tide
and was washed away by the next. But it was not to be the last of Christianity
in China.
1
Of the last twelvc Tang emperors who ruled China in the ninth century and the first decade of the
tenth, only four can be described as effective. The whole country was in turmoil. Towns and whole
provinces fell to r e M s who were particularly cruel to foreign religionists. In the fall of Canton, for
example, in 878. an Arab traveler reported that a hundred and twenty thousand Muslims, Jews,
Christians and Zoroastrians were slaughtered.
:
Ils~an-tsung(805-20.Wutsung ( 840-16) klsiuan -tsung ( 846-859)
:
Foster Church 130
EAST SYRIAN CHURCH MISSION WORK IN CENTRAL ASIA
The office of the Catholicos-Patriarch of the East Syrian Church moved
from Seleucia-Ctesiphon to Baghdad. the capital of the Abbasid Caliphs by the
second half of the eighth century. Baghdad became the ecclesiastical centre of
a missionary enterprise unparalleled in the medieval history of Christianity all
over the world. During this period, main area of the East Syrian Church
missionary activities was the Asian continent between the river Oxus (Amu
Dayara) and the Aral Sea in the West, the coast of China in the East, the
Himalayan Mountains in the South and Southern Siberia with lake Balkhash
and Lake Baykal in the North. This largely extended to the field of innermost
Asia and China with its mountains, steppes, deserts, and fertile valleys and to
the territory of present-by
China (including Tibet and Sinkiang), outer
Mongolia (the Mongol peoples Republic) and the southern Siberian Republics
(particularly Kazakhistan and Uzbekistan) of the Soviet Union.
The Religious background of Central Asian Tribes
The religious background of the central Asian tribes was characterized
by the deeply rooted Shamanism. In the world of Shamanism all human life
and action was dominated by the fear of the omnipresent demons and evil
spirits who were a threat to all the concern of daily life. And it was the
Shaman, the medicine man, who was responsible for the well being of the
people.
I'he people of central Asia were not able to overcome spiritually the
permanent threat to the human life by the crowds of evil spirits and demons in
this Shamanist context. They had not been capable of creating any doctrine of
salvation nor any doctrine promising a paradise in the life to come beyond all
troubles. Therefore, the native Turco-Mongol population of Central Asia was
very impressionable to all the foreign doctrines, which could exactly explain
things about the future life, and therefore Turco-Mongol people took from the
foreign religions, which had come in, all that they missed in their own
religious conception, without differentiating among the foreign religions and
without giving up Shamanism. For this reasons the native people of inner Asia
had an attitude of tolerar~cetowards the religions from outside their country,
which the Mongol Great Khans themselves shared.
Christian Presence
Bardaisan of Edessa (196 AD) mentioned the presence of (Christian)
sisters among the Gilanians on the shores of the Caspian Sea and among the
Kushan in far-off
actr ria'. It is believed that nameless missionaries brought
the Gospel here. Perhaps they were captives from barbarian raids into Roman
territory, though the reference does not seem to suggest this. Not until the end
of the fifth century does evidence for the spread of Christianity to inner Asia
become clear and unmistakable, and then it is dramatically connected with
Shah Kavad (488-497AD).father of Chosroes the Great.
Christianity and the Central Asian Tribes
Shah Peroz. who d ~ e din 481 AD, left his throne not to his son Kavad
but to his brother, Kavad's uncle, Vologases, who is also named as Balash
Kavad revolted and claimed the throne as rightfully his but was defeated and
fled for safety across the Oxus River to the domains of his
father's old
enemies, the White Huns (Hephthalites). Vologases died three years later and
Kavad returned with the help of the Huns and was made the shah3
I. Bardaisan. Book of {he Laws (ed l~J.W.Drijvcrs),61 quoted from Assent Van Gorcum.
3.
Huns and Turks occupied the steppes in Central Asia. They were nomadic people. Somc times the word
'Turks' is used to designate a group of people all of whom used one form or other of a Turkish family of
languages
: The 'Turks of Central Asia lo the sixth, seventh and eighth centuries occupied a strategic position.
Economically the) w u e impoltant because of their control of the land routes from East to West.
Polit~callythey held a key pos~tionin a power struggle involving China, Turks in Mongolia, Tibetans
and thc Muslim Calcphate. Thcy felt the rr~lturalinfluence ofall these groups.
: Phil~p.Euphrates. 69
Shah Kavad : The follower of prophet Mazdak
Shah Kavad came to the throne in a time of national shame, social
unrest, and religious ferment. The succession of military defeats suffered by
his father, Peroz at the hands of the Huns and the humiliation of Persians
paying tribute 10 barbarians had weakened the people's pride in their empire
and their coniidence in its national religion, Zoroastrianism. The social
scenario was ripe for the rise of a prophet and a prophet named Mazdak
appeared. He preached a strange mixture of religious reform and a radical
communism that sounded curiously modern
I.
Shah Kavad embraced the new
doctrine, perhaps as a populist gesture to win the masses and to weaken the
power of the rich nobles who were beginning to turn against him.
He
underestimated, however. the power of the groups he was antagonizing, the
aristocracy, who were understandably not attracted to Mazdak's communism,
and the Zoroastrian hierarchy which naturally opposed reforms so radical that
in effect they constituted a new religion. Priests and nobles combined to
depose him abruptly in 497AD and set his brother, Zamasp, on the throne.
Once again Kavad fled to refuge with the White ~ u n s . ~
Shah Kavad meets East Syrian Christians
Among the follo~versof the Shah who fled with him into exile were two
East Syrian Christians, John of Resh-aina and Thomas the Tanner, who were
laymen. Ordained missionaries, Karaduset, the East Syrian Church bishop of
Arran, west of the Caspian Sea, and four priests soon joined them. The bishop
felt he had been called by
3
vision to minister to Byzantine Christian captives
among the Huns and to evangelize their captors. If possible, he hoped to
ordain priests from among the nomads.. But the mission proved to be an
unqua!ified success. They preached and baptized. The ordained missionaries
stayed only seven years, but the two laymen
-
I.
All men are equal, he procla~~ncd
that all men are equal. All thingsmoney, food, women-are to be
held incommon and s h e d and shared alike. Property rights and marriage contracts are infringements
on human liberty and equality 1.ove is frer and not to be limited to one man for one woman.
2.
:
For murc details
Klirna. ,blazdok
:
Roycc, %orr>niirruns
remained with the Huns for thirty years'. The missionaries reduced the oral
language of the Huns to a written form for the first time and taught them to
read and to write. Later, an Armenian bishop joined the group and added the
knowledge of agriculture to the mission, teaching the restless horsemen of the
steppes how to plant vegetables and sow
The exiled Shah, Kavad,
noticed thib and was impressed. About three years later, when he returned
from exile and regained h ~ sthrone. he remembered that Zoroastrians had
A
organized his fall but Christians had helped him in his time of bani~hrnent.~
Nestorian Chronicle described his return thus:
He asked the Turkic (Hun) king for help and the later dispatched an army
with him to his country, and he dethroned Zamasp.. ....... He killed some
Magians and incarcerated many others. He was benevolent towards the
Christians because some of them had helped him on his fight to the king
of the Turks ( ~ u n s ) . ~
This earliest contemporary account of a East Syrian mission, with its
note of glad acceptance of' hardships for the cause of Christ, its full-rounded
blend of spiritual and practical missionary methods evangelisnl, education,
agriculture and its compassion for captives combined with evangelistic
concern for the captors does much to explain the almost unbelievable success
of East Syrian Church expansion across Asia in the next two centuries. It also
suggests that unlike the unseeml) quarrels in the church at the home base,
those early Christian missionaries to central Asia learned how to set aside their
differences and begin to work together, united in Christian mission, for the
Armenian bishop of the Syrian Orthodox Church who came to join the East
Syrian Christians among the Huns.
I.
L ~ f ewas difficult. The only foud lor all seven men, if the record is not exaggerated, was seven
l i ~ a v e sof bread
and onc1;lr
ol'waicr : da).
I'hus the Syriac ('hristianity
penetrated the landscapes of Central and
Eastern Asia since early centuries! There was religious tolerance in medieval
Central Asia. With regard to the Christians in Central Asia, the religious
tolerance with the subsequent syncretism was not the expression of an
intended missionary method, namely method of accommodation. Such an
active attitude would demand a most suitable consciousness of the essentials of
the Christian faith and a high theological ability to judge the possibilities and
limitations of tolerable situation. In this respect the tolerance and syncretism
among the Christian communities in the East Syrian Church in medieval
Central Asia were quite different from the religious tolerance with syncretic
elsewhere.
The native Asian Christians did not practice the religious tolerance with
all its consequences deliberately, but they
accepted it unconsciously as a
matter of course. This tolerance was an expression of the prevailing religious
mood of the country. Christianity was involved in, a mood of a deep
devotional awe of the numinous one. 2
In the Central Asian Christian communities Christian faith and
Shamanism was combined into a new unity, into a useful co-existence. The
Christian faith could satis& the piety concerning life beyond human death, and
I.
For more dcta~ls, regarding his:or) of 'Earl Svrian Mission in Central and Eastern Asia' :
: F.Nau . L 'expamion nesroriennr ?n Asie,
i,,,
Anna es du Musee Guimet, vol 40, 193-388
: Messina: I l f i r s t i a ~ ~ e s ~ira
n ~Turchr,
o
('inesi e Mongoli, in La Civilla caftolica, vol 96, 90-102, 290-301,
: 1.Dauvilliet : Lerprovmres Chn/r!run,?rs'de i'exte-teur'oumoyen age,
260-316,
: Pelliot : Chrrsrianr& i,a Centrol.4si.l in the ,Mrrld:e Ages. vol 1 7 . 301-3 12,
: Mingana ,Cenfral Asia, vol 9. 297.371, : Stewart, Missionaq Enterprises , 7
: Latourette. History, vols, 1-11.
2.
:
Aprem, Missions
: Browne, Christian,@
A form of piety, which sometimes broke the limits of a traditional Christian faith, characterized every
day life among the Turco-Mongol Christians In Asia. This devotion and piety in Central Asia, however,
had blurred the limits between Christianity and the other religions, and therefore, this Eastern
Christianity in Central Asia grew into the alienation from the East Syrian Mother Church, even before
the connecting lines between the Eilsl and East Syrian Church were interrupted and the Turco-Mongol
Christians became isolated.
Shamanism by means of its superficial practices was able to ensure the well
being in the permanently endangered earthly life. Precisely in this sense two
episodes that are reported by William from the last days of an archdeacon's
I
life complement one another .
The Christian Communities in Central Asia
Refugees from the Persian Empire spread Christianity in those early
days. It was done more systematically by the bishops and monks of the East
Syrian Church especially of the eastern dioceses of the East Syrian Church. In
particular the bahopric of Marv. the cultural centre south of the river Oxus,
became the starting point of the East Syrian missions in these early pre-Islamic
times. According to W. Hage,
'from here Christianity crossed the Oxus and entered Transoxiana, reached
the urban centres of Hukhara and Samarqand, and found its way into the
native Soghdian (Iranian) population as well as into the Turkish peoples
who had invaded this country from the North. When, in the eighth century,
the Muslim axmies, after conquering the Middle East, had penetrated
Transoxiana. they found Christian communities here and even further in
the North beyond the Yaxartes".
By the end of the fifth century, East Syrian Church missionaries were
making converts among the Huns and the Turks in Central Asia. According to
Wilfred Blunt,
'the Christian community there-in many Central Asian Countries included at
different times Jacobite. . . . . . . ..Melkite, Armenians. But as early as the fifth
century, it was an imporiant 'Nestorian Centre', and by the eighth century
continuing until the fitieenth century, had its own ~ e t r o ~ o l i t a n . ~
From the middle of the sixth century, it is said that among the Turks
there were Byzantine Christian captives. In addition to the work of Christian
missionar~es,Christian iniluence mas making its way through the agency of
I
Rock h l i l Journey. iY5
2
Ijage, C ' I ~ ~ ~15~ ~ i a ~ ~ ~ ~ .
3.
Wilfrcd
Goloen Road. 137
Christian doctors, scrihes and artisans who were readily able to find
employment aniong the 'Turks and Huns. About 781AD the East Syrian Church
Patriarch Timothy-I wrote that a king of the Turks had become a ~hristian'.
The Main Centres of East Syrian Christian Communities in Central Asia
In Central Asia, the Christian communities are found at Samarqand of
Sogdiana, Tokmak and Pishpek. Iurfan, Dunhuang, in East Turkestan and
Tibetan area.2 There was a Turco-Mongol Christian community at Samarqand
in the West to Khanbaliq (Peking) in the East. It was the fundamental base of
the Metropolitan sees. The native religious tolerance made possible for a
successful missionery work in Central Asia. According to Hage it was both
advantages and disadvantages.
It was advantageous in so far as the East Syrian mission had been
successful among the native population in converting completely or nearly
completely tribes with the consequence that by the help of those TurcoMongol people Christianity was able to penetrate into China again.
The
disadvantage was that the tolerance naturally no less favoured the other
religions also namely Buddhism, Manichaeism and Islam, which had
penetrated into Central Asla and became the rivals who eventually subdued
Christianity in the far ~ a s t '
The Church life of the people of Samarqand
Samarqand was the e~lporiumon the ancient 'Silk Road' from China,
which was a tributary of the Oxus. It was also an important base for Christian
missions from the East Syrian Church. Soghdiana, which was the capital, a
great centre of learning, trade. Islamic arts and architecture over long periods,
included all the diverse races of the central Asian region and from the length of
I
Mingana. Central Abia. 9- 12
?
Young
. SOI,TL.L)S 44-77
,
: Mzngana
. ( ' e t i t r a i A s i a , 15
the many 'Silk Road' in these centuries. It was famed for its gardens,
vineyards and noble houses, man); of which lay outside the walled city.
In Samarqand largt: numbers of white Huns accepted Christianity,
which stood as a clear exnmple of mission style of the East Syrian Church,
which emerged in many parts of the region.'
By the fifth century, it was an
important East Syrian Church centre, and monasteries decorated with East
Syrian Church Crosses and other Christian symbols have been dated there to
the seventh century.
By the eighth century, continuing until the fifteenth century, it had its
own metropolitan. There are also records for places of worship in nearby Urgut
and Penjikent to the southeast. There are a large number of Syriac Christian
rock inscriptions. 4 post herd shows portions of the Peshitta Psalms. A coin
also found, which a king or a city. could only have issued, shows a East Syrian
Church cross set in a ring oi' pearls. Ibn Hawqal attests the vitality of
Samarqand's church in the tenth century.
Many members of the East Syrian Church lived in village settlements.
There are remains of East Syrian Christian villages north of Samarqand dated
from at least as early as the ninth century.
They were active in trade,
education. and medical occupations, and drew freely on the scholarship and
traditions of the East Syrian Church with which they appear to have been in
regular contacr. Like other communities also, Samarqand retained its churches,
schools and monastic cells under a succession of Arab and Turkish rulers for
almost thousand years. the Samariland churches survived even the Mongol
invasion of 1220:.
1.
S k r ~ n c ilearr
.
. 397
.
: Blunl (;olden. 5 5
: S i n i s Willians :ioyhdinn.JS- 43
:
: Bretssehneider, Reseorches. 77.
i:ollrss, S~~nrarqnnd.
51
: Dauv~llrr.Hisroire er insrirufions des egtisas orienrales au Moyen Age,
2.
Colles .Vesr~~rio,i
. 51
1:283, 1:292, 2:164
Evidence of the city's importance as a centre for the mission eastwards
has also been found in the presence of engraved crosses located along the
direct route between Samarqand and Lhasa. A Ladakh inscription records the
visit of a Samarqand Christian on an embassy to the ruler of Tibet in 841AD. A
thirteenth
century monulnent
in Chinkiang, eastern China, declares
Christianity to be the dominant religion of ~ a m a r ~ a n dEvidence
.'
for Soghdian
Christian presence in the north exists in the form of two engraved silver dishes
discovered in the southern and central Ural ~ountains.' It has long been
known that traders. envoy:, and monks from the west Asia travelled the land
routes eastwards from Merv and Samarqand to 'further India' and China from
at least as early as the fifih century.
'There were stories cf an amazing missionary endeavour, which saw
monks and merchants, travellers, pastors, traders and physicians carrying the
'pearl of the Ciospel' across all the trade routes of ancient and 'medieval' Asia
to the fir north, east and south. This often meant up to year long journeys by
camel, by ass or even on faot, across the many tracks of the 'Silk Road', or by
equally lengthy sea-trips along the many routes of Arab, Persian or Indian
traders
I'hey trdvelled on foot \+raring sandals, a staff in their hands, and on
their backs a basket filled with copies of scripture and other religious books.
They received gifis, some among them large grants from rulers of various
tribes. They did not keep what they received except what could be used
directly for the extension of their work. They distributed the rest to those who
were p ~ o r e r . ~
2.
These depict Bibl~cal$cenr.s iqcluding !I,c dcath and resurrection of Christ, and most probably originated
in the Serniryechcnsk region i c the eiphtl, l i r tenth centuries.
Klim Keit, Clirislriln. 480
3.
But although man) early scttlrmcnts, Budrlliists, Hindus, Zoroastrians or Manichaeans founded
hospices, churches or monasteries, many were the work of eastern Christians and these centres grew
wherever 'Persian'. 'Arab'. or ' Indian' trdde became established in central, south or Southeast Asia
138
The 'missionaries' in this Asia wide movement included many trained
Christian monks in the academic of Mesopotamia and Persia. Many monks
wrote to Patriarch l'imothy-I that they 'crossed the seas to India and China
with only a staff and scrip.'
The role of Soghdian merchaqts appears to have been central in both
trade and missionary endeavour Soghdian and others continued for many
centuries as a group of settlements near the lake of Balkash and Issyk-kul, East
of Samarqand. Christian churches and cemeteries contained hundreds of
inscribed stones which have been disccvered from Tokmak and ~ i s h ~ e k . ~
The Christian Communities at Tokmak and Pishpek
A.R.Vine, A.Blentisky, Grousett Rene and E.Knobloch give the
description about East Syrian Missionary activities in these places. These
authors refer to inscriptions in both Syriac and Turkic scripts of those alive
and dead who were of Turkic descent and native of Tokrnak and Pishpek.
There were regular exchanges between the distant provinces of the Eastern
churches of their highly developed pattern of church life and activity.
Among the names those recorded at Pishpek, there are nine
Archdeacons. eight doctors of ecclesiastical jurisprudence and of Biblical
interpretation, twenty-t\\o visitors. three commentators, forty-six scholars, two
preachers and an lmposing number of priests. Church buildings discovered in
these distr~ctsare in cruciform and constructed according to Syrian canons.
I.
Colless. I ' r a d r ~ s .3 I
2.
According to their description Tokmai \\as on the River Chu West o f Lake of lssyk-kul, situated on the
northern trsdc route bnwecn Ssmarqand and Turfim. It was a headquarters of Khan Tung Shih-hu. There
was a Chinese temple. South of great Toktnak lies one of the Christian cemeteries with an inscription o f
a detailed picture ofchurch life for the perlod between the ninth and fourteenth centuries.
: Vlnr., ihurc1ze.s . 165:
3.
13lcntisky ,C'eniro/ Asio, 65 : Grousett .Empire , 80 : Knobloch, Oxus, 208
Among the description of particular indi\iduals on about 630 great stones dated according to both
Ssleucld era as well as thc 7urko-Mongolian twelve year animal cycle, found at Pishpek and Tokmak
many are women. some arc designated aiudents, and others are monks from near by Monasteries.
Polychrome fresboes have also been retrieved from those of the ruined
churches in the area along with other remains of carved Christian tombs and
large incense burner with carved
of the Last supper.' There was evidence of
East Syrian Christians still being present there.* By the thirteenth century, the
movement of monks, merchants and physicians which created such
communities as these, was reaching all the main centres of the trade routes.
3
'There was some agreement that among the Episcopal and metropolitan sees
recorded for the East Syrian Church as being with in the East Syrian Church
Patriarchate from fourth century to sixteenth century.
The mission of the
people was through education, medical care, state service and trade. It was
notable for their friendly coexistence with Buddhists, Manichaeans and
~uslims.'
East Turkestan
Frorn the seventh tenturles onwards, East Syrian Church missionaries
penetrated east of the Pamirs to Kashgar, Yarkand, Khotan, Nuakith
Gandishapur Semiryechensk, Turfan, Hami and Dunhuang. Many of these
centres retained Christian churches until the fourteenth century.6 It is said that
Turkestan. Dunhuang, Turfan and surroundings had yielded many Christian
artifacts from the fifth
tc~the
fourteenth centuries including paintings,
I.
Buddh~sttemples in the religion are aisu the cruciform with ambulatories and traces of wall paintings.
South of Semiryechensk other centers upon major trade routes such as Uzegan, Kashgar, Tashkurgan
and Yarkmd are not to have had East Syrian Church communities over centuries
3.
i h c included arm are strctcll~ngt i o ~ nhleditrrranean Sea, Indian Ocean, present Syria, Persia, Russian
and C'hinesc 'I'urkestan. Arabia, Socolrd. Afghanistan. Tibet, Pakistan, China and India, Mongolia,
Korea and Japan. The history of these Christian communities shows some to be nomadic, some
monastic. Many tlourishcd ir casmopuliran ports and trading center, some where in the households of
tribal khans and ~~npcrial
rulirs. Son;c ihbcd in the rcrnote valleys and desert Oases.
: John Hisr,>y,49
.
5.
Scull Chrr,rna,i 91,
6.
:
.
Purr, Hzuidhirm. 140
Asmussen, .Sogogdiirn, 20
:
Vou. buried, 100
Banhold, Tzcrkesrun. 387
:
Klimlcit tlans
: Hage , Chrisriani@. 60f
. Chrisriun, 15
manuscripts and relics in the light of the research work on the Christian
communities here especially in Turfin.' The wall paintings of Kyzil, a part of
the kingdom, are judged to be a high point of all central Asian art. Such rich
cultures blended Iranian. I'urkish. Indo-European, Buddhist, Christian and
Manichaean contributions. The greatest activity of the Christian community,
which possibly dared from the filth century, spanned under the tolerant Uighur
~ . included ruined churches, some with bell-towers or
kingdom of ~ h o c h oThey
high stupas, others with large murals of such scenes as adult baptisms on Palm
Sunday; remains of monasteries and cells3. This was the evidence for the
peaceful co-existence of these faith communities over many centuries to be
noted in many areas of Central Asia.
There was a stone church with a stupa tower, East Syrian Church
crosses and murals reminiscent of Byzantine art at Shuipang. There was a
place of worship led by a Syriac-speaking priest, reading the Peshitta version
of the scriptures and celebrating the ancient Syriac liturgy,
part of it in
Sogdian. The co-worshippers would be merchants and traders from Persia or
China or any country in between, a few
farmers and families, soldiers and
Turkic speakers. They understand either Syriac or Sogdian languages. There
was a Psalter in the Palavi of the fifth century and Christian apocalyptic
writings in rnid- Turkish in Sogdhian and other scripts. There were parts of
Psalms New Testament Epistles, Gospels, Nicene Creed in Syriac or bilingual
manuscripts in Sogdhian and Syriac languages. They were also Biblical,
I
The 'lur(al\ lies sourlieast of iJrt.inchi u n thc cdge i > i the Gobi Desert and the Tien Shan chain. From
before tlic Christian cra thc distr;ct had been important for trade and administration both for local
kingdoms and for ccntres o r ihe major rest-west route from Chang-an to Kashgar. In the scventh
century. llsuan Tsnirg on his journey to the Buddhist libraries of India witnessed the wealth and
luxurlancc of well-watered 0asi.r in the Kingdom of Kucha.
2.
Amarrg rhc plrnt~iulBuddh~it,urd Man~chacanremains, fiom the towns of Kara Khoja, Bezaklik,
Syrkip, Shuipang and Turfan. Christian sources are extensive. Many travellers and traders rested there
are at Shuipang. There were iiuitful oasis with farms, hostelries and monasteries of both Buddhist and
Christians
3
Among tlic 140 cevc temples in the regon. there are rock-cut grottos that appear lo be Christian
tombs: Clir~stiansfigure amungsl those pictured in Buddhist or Manichaean caves.
liturgical and other East Syrian Church manuscripts. According the Marco
Polo's description. Marco Polo visited churches at Kara Khoja and Barkul
ca.1274~1).'
The Christian Community in the Oasis of Turfan
Our literary documents clearly show that the Christians of Turfan had
formed part of thr ethnic variety in this cultural centre of innermost ~ s i a ~ .
Eastern Asian Christianity. aAer the conversion of the Kereit in the early
eleventh century, was essentially represented by the Turco-Mongol population
as seen at Qxa-Qorum-Christia~ityin the Oasis of Turfan. Soghdian speaking
Iranians dominated it, and some of their Christian Soghdian terms impressed
the texts of their Turkish speaking fellow believers3. The Christian
communities in Central Asia, the cultivation of the native languages by
translations, and insistelict: on Syriac as the official language of the liturgy,
was characteristic of the East Syrian Church with its chain of metropolitan sees
all over the continent from Samarqand in the West to Khanbaliq (Peeking) in
the East.
The well-known neighbouring centres, like Hami in the East, where
there was a bishop in the second half of the thirteenth century, or perhaps to
the city of Almaliq on the river Ili in the West, was a metropolitan see at least
in the fourteenth century. The picture of the East Syrian Church of Turfan
remains rather imperfect, and knowledge is limited to those materials, which
have survived at Turfan i t s e ~ f .In~ general, it is said that the Christians at
--
~.
.-
~
i<rsses, / i r ! d r r s . 3 1
I.
Jotin. ll!slorv . j X
2.
Sii~c;the discovered fra81ne;its are rnosll! wriltm in the Soghdian language, and to a smaller extent in
ancient Turkish (IJighur). thcic wai lhc presence of Christian people of both ethnical groups (viz.
lianwn>isand Turks) in aotJu!i.cal relalioi,
3.
Sogdiiin had hccn a litiirgl;:ai langir;tgc wen fur non-Iranian people. hecausc the official liturgical
I;inguage amoliij the Ct,rlsti;in5 of 1uriL11h,as Syrfiac inelf
4.
:
I.
:
Hage, Chrishanily, 60
I'hesr relics cannot a n s w r all our quest~o~is;
b u ~!hey can say something about the situation of the small
Christ~an cc,mmunity ia its non-Chr~s~iilnenvironment. They show how the life of the Christian
minority was determined by ihc non-chiistlan majority.
Turfan were not influenced by foreign terms or ideas as much as the Christians
in China were during their first period up to the ninth century under the rule of
the Tang dynasty.
I
But the Sogdian Christians at Turfan there was, indeed a response to the
world of the non-Christian religions around. The Christians of Central Asia
existed there for the apologetic and polemic interests in defending Christianity
and in opposing the other religions. This is to manifest in such literaryproducts
on the higher level of theological responsibility, quite distant from the piety
and devotion of those simple believers in the world of shamanism2. The small
Soghdian and Turkish speaking Christian community at Turfan stands
completely in the traditions of its ~ a s t ' s ~ r i aChurch,
n
which was presented by
means of the common Syriac language in the liturgy.
Dunhuang - A centre of Christian Community
It was the last Caravan halt before the Taklamakan desert to the west
and the first after crossing to the east. Dunhuang became prosperous over the
centuries. with markets and temples. Eventually more than a thousand chapels
were carved and decorated with a wealth of Buddhist art.' Judging from the
paintings and manuscripts discovered, the Christian community that formed
there included, by the elghth century, scribes, scholars and skilled artists.
The
majority of local Christians were Turkish, with some being Chinese or
~ibetan.''4 East Syrian Church community was still active there in the 131h
2.
D r Hdns-loachim Klimkcil ha& devottlcd
3.
Hansen. Berliner RruchFnc~?cke.Vol.10
4
Brctcschneider , Ilrsearcliei, 18f
5
Hop Kirk. Fr,rer~r,.131
lo the study of the history of the non-Christian religions in
Central Asia. He knows Central Asian Buddhism and Manichaeism best, and he is especially
interested in
the contacts between those religions and Eastern Christianity.
century when Marco Polo visited, and it seems that it was then the centre of an
ecclesiastical province with several bishops.
I
The Literary Evidences
The libraries of Christian manuscripts preserved at Shuipang and
Dunhuang
included no tonly I'salters
and scriptures, liturgies and
commentaries, bur also medical treatises, philosophical works, Christian
apocryphal and many others.' They dated from the fifth century on, and
although the principal languages appear to be Syriac and Sogdian, seventeen
different languages and twenty-four alphabets are represented, from areas in
the region between Syrla and China, showing that Christianity had indeed
become rooted in the life of the local peoples themselves. Many manuscripts
identified as originating in eastetm l'urkestan are hagiographics or biographies,
homilies or treatises, which concern asceticism and the religious life, but many
also are notable in including both strongly indigenising and strongly apologetic
emphasis
Tibetan Early Syrian Church Community
In Tibet there is evidence of Persian trade from the fifth century and
records of west Asian physicians at the royal court in the seventh and eighth
centuries. This indicates
:I
policy of toleration on the part of Tibetan rulers
accorded to thost: of other nationalities and religious faiths.
.Timothy -I wrote (792AD) that Tibetans, along with 'Turks and Chinese,
are under his Patriarchate. He declared that he is appointing a metropolitan and
bishops fbr the Tibetans.' C:hristiar, remains discovered for Tibet, include
2
3.
John, ll,.stari, 5 3 quotins ! i o < n /)avi/it'r ,'iistoire er ,nsr;rzilions 11 165
Thls 1s recorded am~dstothcr appoinlmenli being made in order to fill vacancies and thus suggests that
thcre had been previous appointments and that a number of Christians were already established there.
Thomas of Marga writes (L. 840AD) of scvcn bishops appointed "beyond Dailam" after the year 650, and
this regton included Turkcstan and Tibe!.
: Oauv:l/~er,
vo1.2. 164, quoted in John . IIisrory. 54
artifacts, such as the large iron corn-measure from Lhasa decorated in silver
with a Nestorian cross, metal or carved crosses, manuscripts and inscriptions.'
It would be natural to conclude that here there were Christians belonging to all
of these language groups. At Shatschukul nearby, a cross with Tibetan
inscription and the figure of' a dove has been found and at Lake Thsomo-riri, a
cross of iron and bronze. The Tibetan manuscript discovered at Dunhuang, on
which is painted a cross in Sassanian style2. It is not known how long beyond
the tenth century Christian communities continued in Tibet, although the Abbe
Huc was astonished at the large number of Christian rituals, symbols and other
practices, \vhich had persisted within Lamaism, into the nineteenth century.
Decline of Christianity
It is difficult to trace the demise of Christianity in Central Asia. One of
the reasons for its final deathblom in the middle of the fourteenth century was
the spread of the plague3. There were intermittent times of persecution,
especially in the wake of the Arab conquest of West Turkestan. In particular
the Turks, tunling to Islam. adopted this new faith with fervor4. However the
major reason for the demise ot' Christianity was the spread of an intolerant
Islam, wh~chin~tiallyhacl exercised tolerance over against Christians as a
people having a huly book
I.
Platc 112 . (Trmslatcd) J Hogruth
2.
Thc cruis has been dentitied as the wurh o l a local Tibetan artisan. These works show strong Christian
intluencz and include treatnients of such Christian themes as salvation by grace, which interrupts the
operation ofKarmic law.
D a u ~ i l l ~ eH;.sroirt,.
r,
11:165. I l l 135. V :'7
:
3.
A numhrr of inscriptions at Kutluk (Qurlugh). in 1339 AD make reference to the plague, which seems
also to have heen one of the reasons for ihe demise of the small Christian community in areas west of
Lake lssik-Kol. Thc plague haunted Central Asia in 1337-1339 AD. It was to spread to China, India, the
Near East and Europe in the middle of llic fourteenth century. It affected other religious communities
also
: Stciuiir!
4.
: Succi Trans Himalaya,
.
M~,ssjor:.,ry
E n i r r - , , r ~ , s c ~2i l, i
Among lhese were the Scliuks. ono 01 rile firs1 Turkish trlbes of importance to become Islamic.
Sprcad~nl:t h e ~ rrule to the \rsst and caplurlllg Baghdad in 1055 AD, their dynasty was to last up to 1156
AD, when their realm staned iu break up. .Although among the Seljuk rulers there appear to have been
Christians bearing such names as Isreal and Michael, a ruler like Alp Arslan (1072 AD) violently
persecuted adherents of Christianity.
'l'he spread of Islam in Turkestan does not allow discerning a definite
pattern of Muslim attitude rowarc! Christians. So far as either the Turks or the
Mongols were concerned, the fact of a man becoming a Christian did not
weaken his sense of nationality-. The nation was put first, and Christian and
pagan alike were united in common loyalty- to their country1. In South east of
the Golden Horde in the thirteenth century two main centres of power were the
Persian-Arab Hukhara and the Turkish-Uighur Beshbaliq. Main religions in
this realm were Buddhism and East Syrian Christianity, besides indigenous
religions of a shamanistic type.
Christians in Persia and Central Asia became extinct in the second half
of the thirteenth century. The political change has the main factor, which leads
to the extinction of Christian communities there. Although such communities
continued to exist into the fourteenth century, the demise was epitomized by
the bloody conquests and ravages of Timur (1405 AD), who established the
house of the Timurids which was to exist up to 1500 AD 2.
T h e Literature and t h e writings
Among the documents from these areas dated between the fourth and
fifteenth centuries and found in such districts as Turfan, Kara khoja, Dunhuang
and Kao-chang, are liturgical. Bibilical, medical and other East Syrian Church
manuscripts. These i~cluded,in Syriac, hymns and anthem cycles, anaphorae,
prayers. calendars. lectionaries, gospels, commentaries, homilies; in Greek,
creeds, gospel and apocl.yphal nl.itings; Psalter and lectionaries in Pahlavi;
Christian apocalyptic and apocryphal writing in mid- Thurkish and Parthian
translation, as well as paintings and church furnishings of Byzantin style3.
I.
Whcn thcy became Muslims. however. rciigion was put first, and gradually the Turkish rulers came to
look upan the comb:ning o f t h e ~cligioilhillid political elements as one way by which their power might
be increased, arid acted accord~ngl);
2
Young i'orrrai~ch.127-143
3.
Strill
. LJrxerl. 11: 1 7 3 . 359
: Vonl~:. Uurird, 100
: Hopkirk Devils, 130, 184
It must be added that most of the writings in the Sogdian and Uighur
languages. are either translations from the Syriac or depend on a Syriac
original. Other texts or fragments of the Peshitta, the Diatessaron and the
collection 'Dakdham wa-dhather-' (Hymns Before and A3er)which is a Syriac
collection of hymns, from the East Syrian Church Service Book, for Sundays
throughout the year from Persian scholars have also been found'.
Among the forty four commemorations and responses which are
preserved on fourteen pages, are a number which recognize 'merchant
missionaries' and others for Chines martyrs. In this it is in marked contrast to
other Syriac calendars and liturgies, which recognize only west Asian figures.
It is a collection of hymns and anthems from the yearly cycle which have been
discovered at Kao-ch'ang in east Turkstan and are ascribed dates in the ninth
to eleventh centuries.
Further writings in Syriac are still being identified from places like
Dunhunhang and this accumulating
evidence will continue to expand our
knowledge of the use ol'East Syrian Church thought and practice.2 Documents
in these scripts have beer1 discovered at various lavations in east Turkestan
from the period ot'the ninth to the fourteenth centuries3. The Sogdian language
was infict something of a iinguafianca for Central Asia in this period. These
documents show between seventy and eighty Christian texts or fragments in
Sogdian and Uighur have been identified so far. The majority came from the
Turfan and Dunhuang.
A small number of writings in Persian language
have also been li~und.Sogdian t3ibilical texts provide many sections of the
Gospels, Epistles and I'saltns. which were used in the East Syrian Church
annual lectionaries. Sonle Syriac rexts appear in Sogdian versions earlier than
I
A lull 1r;inslacion i s also pn,rjdcd by Si:ck
2.
K i c ~ n. Syrische. 7 5
3
I-luge, i'hrisfrani/r , 46-iii
: Saeki . Uocunzenls, 320-334
the tenth centuq of local origin. Among them is East Syrian Church creed,
Helena finding the True (.'ross: the Martydorn of Sergius and texts and
fragments of homilies, histories of the Apostoles. The Fragment of the
Magicians is one. of the four documents in Old Turkic or Uighur, discovered in
Turfan and dating from between the ninth and eleventh centuries.'
Scholars havt: seen an apologetic concern in this free rendering
of the origlnal text, leading to a comparison of Christ with contemporary
figures of religious and worldly authority and also presupposing a mission
being undertaken tc Zoroastrian groups.2 One East Syrian Church Sogdian text
criticizes Buddhist cults ' A number of Sogdian texts, including introductory
words of some hymns, a list of names of saints and a conversation between a
teacher and a disciple about Noah and Mary Magdalene still await publication.
A further Christian Uighur text is a collection of sayings of apostles,
reminiscent of an oracle hook.
Oreanisation of u u r c h in Central
East Askt
The main characteristic feature of the East Syrian Church, spreading
out to Central Asia was the striking of a balance between ecclesiastical
I.
Based O H tile Syrbac Book ol lhc Cave at' Ircasures (late fifth century), and the apocryphal Gospel of
James (second cenlury), this lsil gives t l i ~ . story of the gifts of the wise man to see Jesus Christ gold,
frankincense and myrrh.
: Asmussen . Sogdran . ? I
2.
it is theretbre possible to tracc in this tiag~nent also both the persisting Syriac tradition and the
developing response of central Asian Christians to their particular cultural environment. In all three
series of texts from rurkestan and China. these two elements are discernible. They provide either a
prototype ur nucleus for the compilation of canticle, commentary or sutrq in which Buddhist forms are
used to e m p h i r e basic Christian beliefs such as the Incarnation and the Resurrection. They also show a
Christian disdain for image worship.
: Hage Chrislionity . 49.22
: Klimkcil , Huddhist, I
.
3.
Thesc writings however include nlany rlements native to their own environment whether in language,
metaphor. or imagery. They oficn present rxtsnsive variations of theme and emphasis in response to
the realitlei of a particular furkcsfan i n Chinese context. These features, along with the established
use US vcrriacular language Sogdian. Ughur and Chinese - show the extent to which "Chaldean" or
'Nestorian' traditions found local and indigenous form across vast areas of central east Asia. These
contextual expressions of ?h!h are thrrcfilrc clearly distinguishable from the documents in Syriac,
similarly d~scoveredin widely scattcl-ed Iocati~ms.
: Kliml.ei!. liuddhirr 4
centralization and regional autonomy granted to more remote 'outward areas'.
Early Synods of the East Syrian Church in the fifth and sixth centuries had
made it obligatory for the Vetropolitans and Bishops to take part in Synods to
be held at the See of the Catholicos-Patriarch every fourth year.
The
Metropolitans of the Outer Szes' (in the remote countries) of course had been
dispensed fi-om this obligation. but in lieu of it, they had to report to the
Catholicos-Patriarch. by letter from their ecclesiastical provinces. To fill the
vacant bishoprics and generally to erect new ones according to their own
responsibility, was part of the often confirmed authority of the Metropolitans
in the area of their jurisdiction.
The ordination of each bishop had to be
sanctioned by the Catholicos-Patriarch himself. This regulation, however was
not binding to the Metropolitans of the Outer Sees. Those privileges, granted
on the basis of the geographical situation, led to a far reaching independence of
the metropolitans in Central and East .4sia.'
The structure of the hierarchical order in the Church
The hierarchy of the Church was divided into three triads, a three-fold
ministry namelj High pries^, Priest and Deacons. In reality, there were also
other offices having a supervising or serving function. Basically, this structure
can also be found in Central and East Asia.
Under the metropolirans were the archbishops and bishops. Junior to
these was the chorepiscopoi, the 'village bishops', who looked after the
country districts.
Although there
was supposed to be only one Chore
episcopos in a diocese, the vast areas of Central and East Asia sometimes
made it necessary to have several. Under the Chore episcopos there was one
visiting superintendent. l'here was no limit to the number of visiting
superintendents in a diucese.
Next rank was the archdeacon who was
responsible for the daily administration of the diocese and the supervision of
I.
SO(Mal). 18-421, Quoted from ilauvillicr. !'r-uv~ncus,271-272
: Andrews, Sources, 86-,90
the priests, deacons and sub deacon. Below the priest in a stricter sense, to
whom the greatest number of clergymen belonged, were the deacons and sub
deacons. Their number was much smaller than that of the priests.
Besides the clerics, there were also laymen serving in the Church in
different positions. There was a stcward, subject to the control of the bishop, to
take care of the local prcperty and material wealth of the church. Similar in
function was the office of the Church supervisor.
I
The Monastic life
A number of texts found at Turfan reflect monastic and eremitic ideals
with an emphasis on fasting, penance, mystic experience and preparation for
death and judgment. Beside priests of various ranks, Christian monks played a
decisive role in the religious life in Central and East Asia. Many Christian
envoys in Central Asia in the following period, including those sent out by
Timothy I, were monks. Mar Sergius who is credited with the conversion of
the king of the Keraits retired to the remote Altai Mountains as a hermit.
Although the gravestones uf the region of Lake Issik-Kol contain no
hints as to monks buried here, there must have been a monastery in this region
in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, as there was one in a mountain pass
between Lake Issik-Kol and Kashgar; perhaps the monks were buried in
monastic cemeteries. 2
Uighur Language
About forty fragments of Christian scrolls in Uighur language and
script are preserved
1
Asmusseni. Sogdian
.
' A number of Uighur texts are written in Syriac script.
19
2.
Ibid, 23
3.
Ian (iillmm, Chrisrruns
, 253
Among these there is a wedding song, written in Uighur (old Turkie), but with
Syriac letters, asking God to bless the young bride and bridgegroom.
A fragmentarily preserved Turkish text in Syriac script from Kara-
Khoto is on the passion of Christ.' On the whole, the East Syrian Church texts
in Uighur reflect the spoken language of the people. Like the Uighurs, other
Christian peoples in Central Asia were of course also acquainted with the
Syrian tradition, both directly and through the medium of their language. Once
a regional language had advanced to be used in the liturgy beside Syriac, it
could become so esteemed that its ecclesiastical use was perpetuated even after
it was no longer in general use.
In 1295, the Catholicos-Patriarch left Baghdad, receding to the
highlands of Hakkari in the border area between Turkey, Iraq and Iran. Here,
as well as in the Mossul area, the contemporary representatives of the East
Syrian Church community still exist as the national 'Assyrian Church', having
lost its 'outer metropolitans' further east.
The inscriptions of Semirice throw the last beams of light on the
vanishing Christian comrriunity. The full history of Christianity's movement
into inner Asia has yet to be reconstructed. Whatever mixture of commercial
motive and political or military pressure may have also been present, the
evidence of sustained endeavours by 'monk and merchant' to cany Christian
teaching ever further east cannot be ignored. Most valuable however may be
the examples already available in art and literature, for the development of a
distinctive imagery and theologj- as Christianity found expression from within
the cosmopolitan comiilunities of west and east Turkestan. Syriac, Sogdian
and Uighur writings have been found at many points on the ancient trade
routes between Persia and China, and in many provinces of China itself. By
far the most significant materials from this region are the document collections
in Chinese. Sogdian and IJighur languages, and the frescoes, silk paintings and
seals, from churches and caves in Turkestan in west China.
The decline of Christianity in Central Asia
There were some Christian tombstones from the Far East with Buddhist
symbols. One of them refelred to a 'most learned priest' among the Eastern
Christians who was convinced of the idea of reincarnation.' It would suggest
that Turco-Mongol Christian communities could easily be influenced by other
religions. For iwo centuries or more it may have appeared possible that
Christianity would become the dominant faith in the reign between the
Caspian and what later became Chinese Turk Stan or Sin kiang. The majority
of the population seems to have inherited types of polytheism, which usually
offer ineffectual opposition to a faith such as Christianity or Islam. The chief
rival of Christianity was Manicheanism. Manicheanism lost, perhaps in part
because Muslim rules opposed it more strongly than they did Christianity.
Islam began to penetrate into central Asia from seven century and by the
thirteenth centu~yit became the predominant faith among the Turks in central
Asia. Yet numerous bodies of thr East Syrian Christians were still scattered
over all Central Asia. T h o ~ ~ gthe
h Christianity made great success in Central
Asia, it did not mean Christianity was the predominant religion there. Except
among certain tribes such as Keraits, Naiman, Merkits and Uighers,
Christianity was only a minority among the Central Asian people.
In the ninth, tenth and eleventh centuries Christianity appears to have
been very strong. The recent archaeological discoveries in the province of
Semiryechensk in Southern Siberia, within the erstwhile union of Soviet
Socialist Republic. proved beyond doubt that Christians must have been
numerous in Turkestan until the fourteenth century.
I . Hage , ('hriritonriy 37
The inipact of East Syrian Church upon Turco-Mongol Christians
b
Even the attacks of the East Syrian Church against all pagan
divination, sorcery and .witchcraft could not hinder the Turco-Mongol
Christians from remaining in the dominating belief in demons and ancestor
spirits, and from resorting to a!! the remedies, which shamanism offered to
cope with earth11 life. C'hr~stiansin Central Asia protected themselves with
amulets. They made Shamans peep into the future and they practiced the
commonly known divining by magic sticks. Nevertheless, in the Central Asian
Christian community's Christian faith and Shamanism was combined into a
new unit). into a useful co-existence. The Christian faith could satisfy the
piety concerning life beyond human death, and Shamanism by means of its
superficial practices was able to ensure the well-being in the permanently
endangered earthly life. I
I
Chrislentunr und Schail~:~nismus.rur Krise des nestoriancrums in zentralasien, in :
Tradilio Krisis-Renovat~aus iheologischer Sicht, (ed Jaspert and R.Mohr) Marburg 1976,
116-120. Quoted in Haee Christianity. 34 : William of Rubruck, Sogdhian, 165
For morc defa~ls.
Hagc.M :
William of Rubruck. Sogdliron
:
!%rown,Chri~lionrly
:
Stewart, Missionay Enterprises
CHAPTER-IV
y
OL
EAST SY
Time was shaping Asia into new and uncomfortable configurations by
the close to 1000. .AD. It \&,asa time of declining empires and collapsing
civilization on the great continent. All across Asia the centres of civilization
and even the church were crumbling. The second part of the ninth century was
a period of internal rebellions and civil wars in China, which caused to the
decline of Tang dynasty. About the year 950 AD, the people of Baghdad might
have looked with pity on the sight of three of their former rulers.' After a
period of divisions, the Sung dynasty reunified the empire and established their
control over China by 960 AD.' The church in Asia at the beginning of the
second millenriium of its history Ihced prospects as bleak and unpromising as
the apparent disintegration of the political and social structures of the whole
continent.'
The Tribe Mongol
Mongol belonged to an Asiatic ethnographic group of closely related
tribal peoples who lived on the Mongolian Plateau and share a common
language and nomadic tradition. hlongolia is a geographical region of East
Central Asia, lylng principally between the Soviet Union and China but
including portions of those cou!ltries. Traditionally Mongolia was divided into
i
Al-Qaliir (93:!-911 \D) /\I-h'lsi;iqqi (910-L)J,IAD)
and Al-mustakfi (940-946AD)
: Arnold. ('airi,huic~.60
2.
Fur cc~lturiesthc iiiost powerlui empires <11Asiahad been the T a n g dynasty in China at one end o f the
continent and the Arab enipire o f lslenl a! the other. The Arab heirs o f Muhammad were losing their
western boundaries to Farirnfd Egyp: and Christian Constantinople, while their eastern provinces were
failing in great blucs to resurgent Perslms and rising Turks. The warriors o f the Islamic conquest had
become puppets in the hands of their m b n mercenaries, the Turks.
3.
In the western Asla &err
W E a signitiinntly a Page nationally recognized body o f Christians, but even
there i t s smtus was severely limited and i t s survival precarious. On the narrow Mediterrenean fringes the
Byzant~ncC'hrisflan Asia, the old Mcikites and Syrian Orthodox communities were comparatively
numeioils.
two district regions. Inner Mongolia and outer Mongolia separated by the
Gobi desert. Today the continguous area inhabited by Mongols is divided into
three political units.' They were one of several groups of peoples who
inhabited the steppes and mountains north and west of China. At times, strong
leaders of well-organised nomadic groups founded states and dynasties in the
steppes, and occasionally they established their rule over parts of China,
southwest Asia and India.
The Mongols captured and burned the Chin capital, Yenching (now
Peking). They unexpectedly halted their eastward march into the empire and
turned fatefully west, over rhe high mountains of the Altai Range toward Lake
Balkash and on into the fertile valleys and great cities between the Oxus and
the Jaxartes. The Mongol (Yuan) dynasty which was dominated by Mongol
nomads in China, was in power in China from 1251-1386AD.
The formation of Mongol En~pireand Genghis Khan
The great invasion of the Mongols under Genghis Khan began and
swept over China. Transoxiana, and Persia. Genghis Khan rode against the
Tangut dynasty of the His-Hsia Tibetan Buddhists who controlled the eastern
approach of the Old Silk Road into northwest China. Genghis Khan, who laid
the foundations of a temporary interlude in the turbulent history of the
thirteenth century Asia, gained control of China under his grandson Kublai
Khan(l215--94~~).'
He moved still farther east against a Manchurian dynasty,
The Inner Mongolian autonornorib region. uhlch belongs to China,
The independent Mongolian People's republic, and
The Buryat autonomoii~rcpuhl~c.I subdi, )\ion of thr Russian Republic
Genghts Klmn was burn as i h i 5f:11 of a pel!) and unimportant chiet By the power of his personality
and the attraction of tiis victoria, h r drcii all !he people to himself and was recognized by the whole
f perfect warier hcfore his 45'h year. Genghis Khan came to power in 1162
nation as the grcat c h ~ e and
within the all the Monpols league and was proclaimed khan in 1206AD. Between 1207AD and
1227AI) he undertook military campaigns that extended Mongol domains to Russia and northern
China, taking Peking in 12ljAI)Genghis Khan had occupied North China in 1215AD, but it was not
until 127YAD that Kublai was able to effect the capture of South China. The Mongol rulers continued to
maintaln their separateness from thr nativc population
the Chin (or Jin). which had wrested northern China from the imperial Sung
dynasty The Mongol Empire de\ eloped its line of authority and rule through
the Chin (or Jin). which had wrested northern China from the imperial Sung
dynasty. laws of descent and tradition through the sons of Genghis Khan. He
had four sons-Jochi, Changatai, Ogetai and Tolui. The empire was divided
into four units, one for each of the sons. The election of the Great Khan was
by the royal family council. The succession to Great Khanate is marked by
names in bold Italics, Genghis. Ogetai, Kuyuk, Mongke, and ~ u b l a i ' .
The rule of the family heartland was given to the youngest principal son
Tolui (1232AD) as per the Mongol custom. It was through the line of the fourth
son that Asian Church histor) was most directly open to and influenced by
Christianity. Upon the death of Kuyuk a momentous dynastic change in
succession brought to the Mong1.d throne as the fourth Great Khan Mongke
(Mangu), grandson of Genghis Khan through the line of Tolui and the
Christian princess Sorkaktani whose imperial name was Pieh-chi.
Kerait influence at Mongol C o u r t through Royal Marriage
Genghis Khan strengthened his position as a ruler by making marriage
alliances with Keraits tribes. Genghis's new daughter-in-law was a Nestorian
Kerait princess Sorkaktxii (Sorghaghtani). She was one of the three Christian
sisters. each ol'wtiom played a nc:te worthy part in the history of the Mongol
L.The chart o t t h e Cenghis Khan h m i l y
lochi
(12271
t
Batu (12561
*
sartk
Chdrig~rdl
(12421
fku
(1229-41)
Tolur
(1232)
t
f
&.I!& (1246-48)
Mother Sorkaktani(l252)
t
t
Huleg!
Ihdlld
(1251-59)
(1265)
(1260-94)
After Gcngli~sdeath, h i s sons loch,. Chagal;!~and l'olui expanded their empire. Jochi received the west
extending III Russi:~.Chagatai obtained northsrll Iran and Southern Sinkiang and western Mongolia.
empire. The eldest. Ibaka-beki, became the wife of Genghis Khan; the second
was, Bekqutmish. was the senior wife of Genghis's oldest son Jochi.
Sorkaktani who married the fourth son, Tolui, became Christian mother of
three imperial sons - Great Khan of the Mongols, an emperor of China and an
emperor of Ilkhan of Persia.
I
East Syrian Christian Presence in Mongol Empire
During the Mongol rule. Christianity.found a second opportunity to
enter China under the toleration of Mongols. It is clear that the history of East
Syrian Church of nearly two centuries, thirteenth and fourteenth, was the
history of the three Mongol emperors namely Hulegu, Kublai, and Tamerlane.
References in Chinese sources in the hundred years of Mongol rule are
rare and tantalisingly brief, but they do confirm the existence of a fairly
widespread Christian presence at the Mongol court and irregularly throughout
the empire, most notably in the northwest and the east. There are records of
many East Syrian Churches in Turkestan, Mongolia and China.
Main sources of information
From the twelfth century until the early fifteenth century, there was a
wide spread vitality and growth for Christianity through out Central Asia and
China. Christian comniilnities across the Central Asian steppes are known to
have a continued history from the nine to fourteenth centuries. Physical
remains from the eleventh to fourteenth centuries have infact been discovered
in hundreds of localities in the region extending from west Turkestan and
m eastern China. They included inscribed
northern Mongolia to s o ~ ~ t h eand
crosses and steles, village and cemetery remains, monastic and church ruins,
seals, frescos and silk paintings and manuscripts. The other main sources of
I
For morc details
Sailndres , Ifislor?, 52-7(1 : Spulrr t f i . s r o ~ 97-108
,
: Howorth , Hisrory , 1:103
: Buylc . Sucressorr , 99 : M o f f e l i Hi.slory. 404. 440- 445
information about the church in the Mongolian empire are from the writings
and reports of the v~sitorsand traders. Especially, the works of the thirteenth
century h~storianGregory Bar Hebraeus, the Maphrian of the East is unique as
an eyewitness source of iniormation from the Christian perspective about the
. ' Hebraeus goes on to quote a letter
church in Persia under the ~ o n ~ o l sBar
from Ebedyeshu to the East Syrian Patriarch John VI in Baghdad (1009AD)
which reports that as a result of the mission that followed, the Kerait prince
and two hundred thousand of his tribesmen accepted baptism. For the next two
hundred years the Keraits were known as East Syrian Christian tribe of ever
increasing importance.
The missions of Franciscan groups led by John of Plano Carpini,
William of Rubruck and John of Montecorvino are also another sources of
information
'. The travel account of the Polo family, their journey to Mongol
-
-.
Bar:
((1226-1286AD)
I.
: He was the son o f a Jew& physician liv~ngin Melitene and his mother may have been Ambic, for he
also had an A n b name, Abu'l Faraj. The interweaving of race, language, denomination, and cultural
influences combined with the political advantage of his family's felicitous connection with the Mongol
rulers formed the base office background
to bw!d a remarkably effective Christian ministry in the chaotic world of the
thirtemth-century Middle East. At about the age of seventeen Bar Hebraeus became a non Chalcedonian monk and he became the leader of the Asiatic Christianity. The position of Maphrian of
the East was the second highest post in the Syrian orthodoxy. As Maphrain, he became the head of all
the churches of Asia, i'ast of thc Cuphratci
: Bar Hebraeus was able
: His Buok Chronography is divlded in rhrsc pans.
: History ol the Worlii
:
ilistirry nl'thi: Church to 1286AD. : History of the Eastern Church from
StThotnar
2
William
:
:
ul' Rubruck's
report irSCast Syrian i::lir~stians in Mongol Empire
Also known, as Wtlliam varr Ruysbrocck (1215-1295AD) was a French Franciscan friar whose
eyewitness account of the Mongol realm is generally acknowledged to be the best written by any
medieval Christian traveler. He was the contemporaly of Roger Bacon, the scientist and philosopher.
King L.ouis I X of France sent hirn as a mission to Mongol Empire in 1253AD.
Mongul ruler of Volga River region was Oatu Khan at that time. He sent them to the court of Great Khan
at Karakorum in central Mongolia Willlam and his companions remained there until July 10, 1254AD.
He wrotc his Mongol~anexperience for lhr. French King.
: Noth~ng15 kn0u.n about his lare: life except he was altve when Marco Polo returned from the East in
1255AD
China and of the Christians he found there is one of the most important pieces
of information that has come down about East Syrian Christianity in China in
the thirteenth century.' This was the first eyewitness description of China from
a western point of view. They took reports back to Europe about the Christian
Community in China and Turko-Mongolian Tribe-Keraits.
Unknown East Syrian Church lay missionaries and Christian merchants
engaged the trade with the restless tribes of Mongolian steppes. They
converted the 'Turko-Mongolian tribe called Keraits (Kereyid) to Christian
faith.2 Gregoxy Bar Hebraeus gives an account of the first conversion of Kerait
Towards the end of the twelfth century (1162-1227AD) the Christian
chief of the Keraits Togrul Wang Khan became to patron of Genghis Khan.
The semi-evangelized tribes such as Merkit, the Naiman and the Ongut united
as an empire. It was in this period the Mongols became a political entity, in the
organization of the confederation of Keraits.
I.
Thr I'olu brothers are knoiun as Mnfb). Nlcolo Polo and Nicolo's son Marco Polo who were not
missionartes bur as iravelleri
Thc I'olr> brothers became the first known Europeans to reach China.
Travrlcrs and missionaries t o !he East hsloic that had not been able to penetrate beyond the Mongol
capital in Mongolia. Of more i!lterest ot'urstern Christians were Polo's references to wide spread East
Syrian ('hurch Co~nlnunitirrscattered ;lc:i,ss the China.
: For more details rlie f o l l o w ~ r ~books
g
are helpful:
: Chsn Yuan Westcr~~
and Central Asians
China under the Mongols, 75
: The hesl English translation and editions of Marc0 Polo's travels are as follows:
: Marco 1'010, L)escr~prionojil,'<;rid2 Jii1.s. (Ed. Mou1e.A.C & Pe1liot.P)
: The Nooh ofSer .?filreoPolo 2 v o l s (Ed i'oidicr.H. & Yule. H)
: EberhardHfs~ory
ofChina, 236
2.
There were the sccnc of the u:iccasing lnigrjtions and conflicts of the nomadic work of Mongol peoples.
Dcspitc this, some ancient triiditions i r t culture had been preserved since the wide range of cultural
contacts existing between thz Huns and China, Iran and Syria. in early centuries. East Turkish
inscript>onsfrom rhe eighlh centur). .lrc of high literary quality and later Uighur culture contributed
furrlizr ctvililinp iiitluenccs to the Keriiit i ~ r t Naiinan
l
tribes.
3
Thc k ~ i ~
ofgKcrarts had a iis:oii of C11rc.i while hunting in the mountains. A t his request to the Christian
mcrch;lnts, priesti and deacons were ill\~ r t dthrough the East Syrian Metropolitan o f Merv, Ebedyeshu.
Mary had been thc seat o f a Bishop of 1hr: East Syrian Church since the fourth century.
T h e Christian C h u r c h in the Mongol E m p i r e
The victories of the religiously tolerant Genghis opened up Asia to
Christian missions. The waves of Mongol conquests were as follows. The first
was that of' Gerlghis Khan and his sons, and sons of the Pax Mongolica, who
had ruled Asia for a hundred and ijfty years or more. The Persian Ilkhanate of
the line of Genghis's fourth son Tolui, through Hulegu disappeared in 1335
after six generations. The Chinese empire of Kublai Khan survived to the
seventh generation but fell more spectacularly than any of them in 1 3 6 8 ~ ~ ' .
T h e Chagatai line in the Mongol E m p i r e
In 1269.4D the central Asiatic Khanate split into two parts, roughly
2
corresponding to east and west Turkestan
. The
eastern part, under Prince
Kaidu, protected both Christians and Muslims with the typical religious
tolerance of the first three or four generations of the Genghis clan.3 The
western part of the khanate (west Turkestan) remained under the line of
Chagatai, whose successors centered their rule more and more on the highly
civilized Muslim cities of Tashkent, Bokhara Samarkand. Of the minority
religions that remained, Jews outnumbered Christians in the larger cities, but
the tenth century ruins of a. large Nestorian monastery have been found south
of Samarkand, and there are passing notices of many towns with Christian
churches from that time on
Atter the death of Kaidu in 1301 the Christians increasingly felt the
pressures of Muslim intolerance. Taliku (1308-1309) the twelfth khan in the
west, was criticized by his Mongol warriors for over favouritism towards,
I.
For more details : Saunders . Hislo?
2.
Craussct
. 17
:
Ilaydar. !lisiurv. 290
:
Moffett , History. 401
. Enzpi,~. 326
3. Though almost constantly at i%i!r wlth
l h ~ hcousin Kublai Khan, he graciously received Sauma and Mark,
the two monks from Kubali's Peking and sent them on their way to Persia with letters a f safe passage.
: Barthoid . Sfvdres. Vol. I . l IS 1
Muslims. Kebek, the fourteenth khan (1318-1326) protected the Muslims of
west Turkestan and northern Afghanistan from the enmity of his more fervent
shamanist followers. Under Lhe fifteenth Khan, Elechigidei there arose a brief
revival of Christian activity.'
Even under Musl~m rulers some freedom remained for Christian
Missionary outreach Buzan (1334) allowed East Syrian Church Christians to
rebuild their churches and Jews their synagogues? The last Chagatai Khan,
Chingshi or Jenkshi. (1333-!338), was a Muslim but no friend of Islam. After
his death a massacre of Christians swept through the streets of the capital.
There is very little other mention of Christians in Chagatai territory,
though among their subject were numbers of Uighurs, who had once been part
Buddhist, part ~ h r i s t i a n . ~The Khanate in Central Asia of Changatai fell in
1338 AD.^ The Mongol line 01' Chagatai was displaced by Muslim Turkic
governors. Kaidu's successors in the Ogedei line of eastern Turkistan failed to
match him in Mongol leadership.
Moffcfl His~srom.482 quoted tiom , Llelao-oix 'llistoire U~iverselledes Mission Catholiques',Paris,
1.
191.
2.
Spliler Uuslrm
:
3.
2 45
Molfett. Histon 483 quoted iiom , h 'l.hornas 'Hutore de laMission de Pekin' Paris (1923) 64.
Marignolli, who passed through Alrnal~i:on his way to Peking the next year, was the first to report the
glorious rnartydom' ofthe hishap ofi2lrnalik. Richard, and six Franciscan missionary priests.
: Anothcr list of martyrs it~cludesthe n a ~ ~iii'Master
ic
John of India, a black man belonging to the third
ordcr of St. Francis' who had heen con\erled by Franciscans in India.
: 1-lic persecution \\as viole~lra . ~ drothli.\.. but mercifully short. By the time Marignolli arrived, he was
ablz tu build a church and bapti~eand preach openly for some months before proceeding on his way
to China. The mosl complrtr iiccount on the catholic work and the massacre in Almalik was written by
'~
Bartholomow of l'isa a Franciscan of 1 . ~century.
: 3puli.r
5.
Asia 1 135
The Changatai Mongols at first remaincd nomadic, roaming the grasslands, dominating the caravan
routes between East and West, and iul~ngtheir more settled Turkic-speaking town centres with the
arrogant, arbitary power i,f country hrteii and city suspicious warriors
The later princes of both lines took Muslim names and became the
puppets of their Turkic governors. Both eastem and Central Asia was tom by
poverty and savage civil disorder from the 1360-1370AD. Huge areas including
the Christian communicates of the cemeteries uncovered around Lake
Issykkul., \Yere virtually depopulated. It was in this time of bitterness that
Timur the great, known to history as Tamerlane (1336-1405AD) came to the
world scene, which will be discussed later.
Hulegu and Kublai
The first two werc brothers. sons of the East Syrian Church princess
Sorkaktani. The third Tamerline vias an outsider, not of royal Mongol blood
and more Turk than Mongol. H~lleguand Kublai protected Christians, while
Tamerlane destroyed them. I
Sorkaktani and the line of dynastic succession
Three Christian sisters each of whom played a noteworthy part in the
history of the Mongol empire. The eldest Ibaka-beki, became the wife of
Genghis Khan, the second. Bektutmish, was the senior wife of Genghis oldest
son, Joch~ The youngest sister Sorkaktani
married Tolui,the youngest son
of Genghis Khan. She became the mother of three imperial sons, Hulegu and
Kublai and Mongke who has Christian inclination. The emperor, Kublai was
the Great Khan of the Mongols. Hulegu was the emperor of China, and an
emperor (Ilkhan) of Persia.
Tolui was the greatest of the Mongol rulers of
China in the short Yuan dynastj ( 1 2 6 0 - I ~ ~ s A Dand
) , ~the most powerful man
-
I.
~~~~
Boylc . .\uccessors. 241
2.
Sorkakrani was a Christian Kerait princ<sses. Between the two sons Kublai Khan owed much to both
sides of'hls lineage He had something of the same world-conquering ambition of Genghis and the love
of combat for which his father. Tolui. nz, limed. He also had a good measure of the political wisdom
and rrlig~ousfair-lnlndedncss of his mutlicr. Sorkaktarli.
3
Mongol history backdates the dynasty In (icnghis Khan in 1206; and official Chinese history begins it
only with the final t i l l of llir sourhern Song in 1279/80. But Kublai was already ruler of most of China
by 1260
in the world of his time.
I-le was destined for yet greater things. Sorkaktani
died in 1252AD. She lived just long enough to see her first son, Mongke,
succeed to the title Great Khan borne by her father-in-law Genghis, Great
Khan of the Mongols. But she did not get the chance to rejoice in the elevation
of her third son, Hulegu,
LO the
Persian throne as Ilkhan in 1261. Nor she lived
to see her second son, Kublai, carry the line of Genghis to its greatest heights.
She died while Kublai was still fighting his way to imperial power in China,
the 'centre of the world'. But her influence on her sons' character and policies
was widely credited as the shaping factor in the ultimate success of this
remarkable family of rulers of Asia. Her husband, Tolui, had died when he
was forty-two years old, two years after the death of his father, Genghis Khan.
Kublai Khan was a fi-iend of the Christians, but he was not a Christian
himself. I-Ie fully intended
10
hccome a Christian, but this was a standard
political practice ti)r a blongol ruler.3 The line of Genghis's grandsons by
Tolui and princes Sorkaktni begn to unravel. Her eldest son, the Great Khan
Mongke died in I259 AD.
Her third son, Hulegu, ruler of Persia, was
occupied with his own wars against the Muslims in the South and with threat
of civil war with Golden Horde in the North.
1
Boyle Sc,l,uk, 3451
2.
The thin1 ruling Mongol emperor or Chln;i. a grandson of Kublai, acknowledged the dynasty's debt to
Sorkaktan~,in 13 10,\D posihumously grarrted her the title of 'empress'. The elaborate ceremonies
included a East Syriaii mass se!ebrated probably before her imperial portrait in her own tablet halls, one
in far inorthwestern (.lrina2 and a~!othcrncdr !he ncw capifal at Peking.
3.
1 1 . 1 1 Iloi*urth remachi. 'With hubtill, ah >ri.h his prcdeccssors, religion was treated usapolitical muttcr.
The Khali [Great Khan] must hi. 21hcj'ed; I j ~ i i , man shall worship God is indifferent.'
: It was in t h ~ third
s
gci~cratioi~
;~ficrGcnghis hiran, following the death of Kuyuk Khan, son of Ogetai that
dynast~crivalries with~nfhe house of Genghis began to chip away at the authority of the Great Khan and
ultimatell destroyed the Mongo! hegemon) in Asia.
The Christianity u n d e r Kublai K h a n (1260AD)
Kublai Khan became great Khan in 1260 AD. He devised a phonetic
alphabet somewhat like his own Mongolian script but more like the related
Tibetan written language rhat might be used to transcribe Chinese characterise
the ideographs. into a readill pronounceable language.
The tolerance of Kublai Khan, the Great Khan towards all religions was
i Muslims, Buddhists, Confucianists, and
pragmatic and political. K ~ ~ b l ahad
Christians in his inner circle. ' Basically he was a shamanist like his ancestors.*
The openness to the religions shows the attitude of tolerance, which was
upheld by later rulers. This allowed Christianity to thrive. He was convinced
that the Christian faith was the best of all the religions and
his fear that
adherence to an) one religion would divide the people and set the
otherreligions against the government, prevented him from being baptized.
Kublai himself did not convert to Christianity for the sake of the nonChristians attached to his court who would demand an outward sign that the
Christian God is stronger than the divine powers of the Buddhists.
The position of Christianity under Kublai Khan is a mixture of
considerable visibility hut fluctuating influence. When non-Christians made
I,
Polo, 1~)escr~prion.
188
2.
fle shinved i~ spccial afinit) towards Buddhism. When Kublai received private religious instruction
fro~nihc Lama. he used to stt on a loiier platform than the Tibetan cleric, a generous gesture. Kublai
wai careful in h ~ streatment of C~~n!Lsianism.Kublaibuilt Confucian temples in his capitals and
encouraged the \cncratiun o! ancestors, ~ncludingof course his own. In spite of his leanings towards
Buddhism and his interest in Confucianism. he had an open attitude to other forms of faith. Islam was
another stm11g influence ;n ;he Yuan-dynasty government. Through his brother Hulegu, Kublai Khan
was well acquainted with ;he power o t Islam and of its potential threat to the Mongol rule of Asia. Islam
never !had a popular influence in Moiigol China. Kublai was open to Buddhist familiar with Confucian
ideas. and acquanited with lsl,~m.Tiic c t l ~ ~ c a!deals
l
of the Confucius include the important duties of
goodncss, appealed to Kublai pzrso!!;ill\ Kubiai's vulnerable situation as a foreign Mongol ruler of a
conquered but th~cWypopuiaied and highly civilized Chinese nation led him to adopt a strategy of
governmg through inrermrdiatesTl~is in turn tended to enlarge the powers of foreign advisers,
including Christians.
fluworth , Hisrnry , 534
Polo, Description, 188
:
: Rossabi, Kublui Khon. 1 1 . 114, 154-151) : Wright. Hlstory, 75
: Latourette, History, 61-71
fun of the cross, the Khan rebuked them comforting the Christians. Christian
advisers were well known at his court
the most true and good'
I.
Kublai held the Christian faith 'for
' Kublai Khan who he expressed interest in Christian
learning may have been more interested in the 'seven arts'-western science and
learning.3 In 1289AD, Kublai Khan created a department of the Chinese
government to deal with the affairs of the increasing numbers of Christians in
his empire. Its President was a East Syrian Christian physician named Aihsueh who later became president of the Han -]in academy
Kubla~divided his empire into giving
preference to the Mongols,
central Asiatics, Persians. anti Westerners. In the latter years of Kublai's reign
he was troubled by an outbreak of revolts on the fringes of his empire from
Tibet to Manchuria. It involvcd the rebellion of a Christian Mongol prince,
Prince Naian. Naian was J I:ast Syrian Christians secretly baptized but more
superstitious than actually practicing the works of a Christian. He rode into
battle under the banner of the cross.
I.
"
Accbrding to Marco Polo the fathcr o f the monk Sauma, is probably the Siban who is described as
one o f Kublai Khan's esrliesr Christian advisers.
: Moule , Cilrisli'ms. 94
2
The Khan observed the chief feasts of the Christians-Easter and Christmas. He summoned all
Christians and revered 'the book in which are the four Gospels.' On the Khans birthday, people of
varioos religions prayed to their gods to glve long life, health and joy to Khan-Tartars, Saracens, and
Chrisrians
3.
Accolding to ivlarco Polo 'wise men US learning in the Christian religion and doctrine ... who should
know also the seven arts and be titled to teach his people and who should know well how to argue and
to show plainly to him and to the idolaters and to the other classes of people...that all their religion
was erroneous, . and who should know well how to show clearly by reason that the Christian faith
and religion is better than theirs and more true than all the other religions; and ifthey proved this, that
he [Kublai] and all his potentates would beccme men ofthe Church'.
4.
Ai-hsurh once persuaded Kubla to clit short the personal pleasure of a hunting trip and to give
priority instead to thc country's strclggling farmers. And when a later empress ordered him to "consult
the secret courses o f the stars" likc and astrologer, he had the courage to refuse.His five sons bore
Christian names-Elijah, Denha. h a , George, and Luke-who rose to high rank. Ai-hsueh became well
known for his age advice to the crnperor against extravagance and in favor o f mercy.
5
Prince Nian was a junior rousln o l Kublai through a stepbrother o f the great Genghis, joined in
rebsllioi, the more powerfui I'rincr Knidu, Central Asia. They denounced Kublai as a sinicized, over
civilired traitor to the front><,-fighting tr;tditions o f real Mongols. Kublai challenged and led an
imperial counter anack. Nai;lii Bar capturril . executed and put to death
In the year 1294AI) the emperor Kublai Khan, protector of the Church
in China died. The death of Kublai, last of the truly great Khans, signaled the
approaching dissolution of the Mongolian empire in the Far East. Kublai's role
as the founder of the Yuan Dynasty was decisive for he paved the way for a
religious policy that was to be observed by later Khans. Mongols rule in China
was strongly determined by the po!itical and cultural outlook of Kublai Khan.
I
The Christipn Church at the time of Hulegu
'The history of the church in Asia in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries outside the subcontinent of India to the south is dominated by the
political power and traditions of Mongol China. Among the three Mongol
rulers Hulegu and Kublai protected Christians. When Mongke was raised to
the Mongke throne as the fourth Great Ghan (1251AD), he announced that it
was his will to complete the conquest of the world begin by his victorious
grandfather Genghis and that the Mongols would ride again to the attack. He
himself intended to lead one army east against China, but left most of the
actual warfare there to his brother Kublai.
The commander of the Mongol army's vanguard was an East Syrian
Christian named Ked buka. 'the Eull.' Hulegu's queen, Dokuz, was also a
Christian and travelled with a portable, East Syrian Christian chapel on an
accompanying wagon.' Hulegu. under his most gifted general led the way
across the Oxus into Persia. As the Mongols approached his Persian capital,
the Mongols simply surrounded the city. The defense faltered and the Caliph
sent a group of envoys. including the East Syrian Church Patriarch to sue for
surrender. The Caliph refused.
peace. ' Hulegu gave the Persians ~~nconditional
O.I.'ranke remarks 'This niilli. who %a&10 become one of the greatest rulers of world history, not only
towcred highly abuve the pilff'<d u p wurld uf letters of the Sung, but also above his whole time with
respect to intellectual prudence. un prejudicbal quality of character and goodness of hear'.
: Ian (;illman, Christ~ans,31'1
1.
2
Saundcrb. Hislov 108
3.
Howonll . H i s ~ o 3~ ,123 . quoird fro!^^ I'ic? Syrraquev , Vol. 362
:
Hoyle, hlo,igol. 342
:
Howonh, History, 3:90-217, 1 5 4 2
The result was annihilation. They cut the Caliph's troops to pieces, drove
almost the entire population out of the city, and massacred them by the
thousands. Only the Christians who took refuge in one of the churches of the
East Syrian Church Patriarch were spared,' because the Patriarch had been
willing to serve as negotiator or perhaps because of Hulegu's family
connection with Christianit). His queen Dokuz personally managed to handle
the lives of many of'her fellow believers.
Year later the victorious Hulegu
invaded Syria, with the Christian general Ked-buka and received the surrender
of Damascus in 1260AI). During this period,-the
Mongol advance was
checked at this place.
The factors that checked the Mongol Advance
Four important factors checked the Mongol advance. The first was the
unexpected death of the Great Khan Mongke. At the news, Hulegu abruptly
departed for Mongolia to take part in the election of a new Great Khan, taking
most of the m
y with him.
He left Ked-Buka with only ten to twenty
thousand troops. 'The result was momentous.'
Second factor was the loss of
Mongol unity in a series ofdebilitating disputes over the succession to the
title of Great Khan of the Mongols. Third factor was the ambivalent attitude of
the Crusaders. At first they welcomed the Mongols.Then, when a nephew of
the Christian Mongol general Ked-Buka tried to restrain them from
plundering, they turned and began to help their former foes, the Muslim armies
of Egypt. The fourth factor that drove the Mongols out of Syria and back into
Persia was the emergence of a new military power in Egypt.
I
2.
3
Boylc Fvldngol, Vci, V. 34h
The Cai~phwas brwght beti~rcliulegu i \ h o lhanded him over to thesoldiers with the reminder that royal
blood must nor bc spilled <in !he ground They rolled the last of the Abbasid Caliphs in a red and
trampled him under their horse'; feet.
: Kirakos . Georgjon , 3:129
The death of Clgeia~in 1241 \ d ~ c dChrl>l~aliEurope, the death of Mongke in 1259 was to save Musl~m
Asid
. Muir
ialaphote, 592
The death of both Hulegu and his Christian princess Dokuz in 1265AD,
the same year that the East Syrian Church Patriarch Manicha I1 also died,
brought mourning and a sense of foreboding to Christians all through the
Middle East. Ecven in Baghdad the power of Islam was on the rise again.
Those first thirty-seven years of Mongol rule in Persia (1258- 1295AD) were the
last short years of flowering for the East Syrian church. The East Syrian
Church Patriarch Makika-I1 was favourably treated with the help of Hulegu's
Christian wife. He rescued his Christian community from at least some of the
bloody massacre that followed the sack of Baghdad. Hulegu even turned over
a palace of the fallen Abbasid Caliph to the Christian Patriarch.
It was also reported that Hulegu was about to be baptized. The new
Patriarch, Denha-I, soon found himself fleeing from an outbreak of Muslim
violence that had erupted i n protest against his baptizing of a convert from
Islam. liulegu was probably always, to the end of his life, no candidate for
baptism but an eclectic Shamanist who might have even have finally turned
Buddhist, rather than Christian. I The new Ilkhan, Hulegu's son Abaka, who
ruled for the next seventeen years (1265-1282), proved to be as protective of
Christians as his father, The llkhan Abaka's wife Kotai was a Christian, and in
general his reign was just and favourable to Christians. 2
The arrival of Roman Catholic Church delegates(1095-1291AD)
In 1095 AD Pope [Jrban I1 appealed to the Christian lords of western
Europe to rescue the Hal) Land from the Turks. The imperialist violence of
I. Both the Muslim historian Rashid al-Din and the Armenian Christian chronicler Vanan attest to Hulegu's
openness to Christianity. Rashid wrotr: T u please his princes [Dokuz] Hulegu heaped favors upon [the
Christians] and gave them e\,cry ioken of his regard so that new churches were continually being built
and at the gate of Doquz-khatun's ordu there was always a chapel where bells were rung. Vartan, who
was at thc court of Hulegu in i 264, noted the presence there of the Christian kings of Little Armenia and
Georeia and the Crusader prince o f Antioch and was given a private interview with the ilkhan in which
Hulegu told him "thal his mothcr was a Christian and that he felt much attached to Christians
: Ho~vi~lh.Hislory.
24.: Hausant. i?uligton,540 : Moffctt , Hislory, 438 quoted from Dulaurier Mongols, 2
2.
Buckler, I %arler:the (ireal,l8
the two centuries that brought East and West, Muslims and Christians, into
eight or nine great series of battles are popularly called 'the Crusades'. There
were three distinguishing features of the age, namely the fall of the Arabs, the
triumph of the Turks pouring in from the east, and the brief, bitter, failing
interlude of Atlantic Europe's intervention from the west.
This was the first Crusade landed in Asia in 1097AD near ~ i c a e a . ' In
1009 the Caliph of' Cairo, al-Hakim, tore down the church of the Holy
Sepulchre in Jerusalem, the most holy shrine in Christendom. Then he added
insult to injury and repudiated a treaty reportedly agreed upon two hundred
years earlier by two of the greatest figures in Christian and Islamic history, the
Roman emperor Charlesrnagne and the Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid. It
was this treaty that despite wars and revolutions had long allowed a steady
stream of pilgrims safge passage from the West to worship at Christian shrines
in Muslim Jerusalem.
The second Crusade was (1144-1187AD) dominated by Islamic
counterattack. Of the great Saladin ( I 138-1 193AD) the third periods of the age
of the Crusades ( I 187-1?9IAD) was a century of downward spiraling, abortive
attempts by the 1.atin west to rr\ive the spirit and successes of the First
Crusade. rhe agc of the Crusades also saw the rebirth of a humbler form of
Western Christian mission to the East more in the spirit of the Christ, in whose
name it was practiced. These were exemplified by the emergence of two
Roman Catholic missionary orders,the Franciscans in 1209AD and the
Dominicans in I22OAD The East Syrian Christians and Armenians welcomed
the Crusders as libercitors but icmained Orthodox, and as ecclesiastically
independent of L ~ t i nC hrlstianit)
I.
:
:
3.
as was possible
under the
circumstance^.^
Bar llebracus C'hronogrsphy ( Ed. Uudgc) 417 : Doyle -Saljuq, 340 : Howorth, History, 3::90
l l o w u r t h . H i s l o r > .1:2!0 :
Saundrrs , Hisloty, 108
:
Boyle Mongol, Vol. V, 342 ff
Chen . Wesrern . 41-53
:
Moscs, in~rodzcction 52
:
Grousset Empire,257
.
.
Condor Latin, ? ! 9 . : Salibi Maronltc. Y i : MoosaMaronites 195,
:
.
Hamilton Crusader, 217
The Intervention of Muslim extremists
Ghazan (1295-1304A1)) the seventh Ilkhan and the first to rule as a
Muslim, was the ablest since Hulegu. But he was the angel of doom for the
Christians.' The history of Syriac Christians under the Mongols was described
as 'Black Clouds'. His first decree ordered the destruction of all churches,
synagogues, and Buddhist Temples through out the land. Islam became again
the official religion of Iran.
'
Bar Hebraus describes the plight oiC:hristians in the days as :
No Christian dared to appear in the streets (or market), but the women
\vent out came i n bought and sold, because they could not be
dlstlnguished from the Arah women and could not be identified as
Chr~stians, though who were reco n i ~ e d as Christians were disgraced,
and slapped, and beaten and mocked.Y The Muslim extremists irritated Christian and Ilkhan intervened to
restore order and stop the looting. Ghazan brought the shaken Patriarch,
Yaballah, to the palace and restored him, to some of his former h ~ n o u r . ~
Thereafter the llkhan showed himself more lenient towards Christians though
no less immovably Muslim. Two years after his accession to the throne
Ghazan and all his highest nobles publicly and ritually exchanged their broadbrimmed Mongol hats for thc Muslim turban.'
.-
I.
~~
. --
At Kublal's death, (itikhatu (1291-129ji\Il) who was the fourth llkhan and grandson of Hulegu,
reigned as an llkhan He war a disaster as ruler, but like his brother , Arghun. He befriended
Chrislians visiting the great ~ncw Church bull1 by his fellow Mongol, the Patriarch Mar Yaballaha ,
in the llkhan's nonhcrn capital oi' Maraghch . But his mismanagement of tinances triggered rebellion
and hc was strangled His shun lived successor. Baidu, was more inclined to Christianity. According to
Bar Hebraeus, the llkhan personally claimed to be a Christian and wore a cross around his neck. He
told to the Christians that he was a Christian and to the Muslims that he had convened to Islam.
: Howonh H i s t q . 3 278
:
13ar Hebraucs . Chronography, 462,505 : Grousset ,Empire. 127
.
2.
Bausani . Religinn iol. 5.542
3.
Bar liebiaues, tThront,groph>,5fi7
4.
Since Gl~azanlast his to losr coi~lidcnce( 8 1 l b c chirf'persccutor, his Muslim general Nauruz, who had
prcsscd him to leave iiuddhisxrl I ' L
Islam
~ I IL. ,now discovered that Nauruz had been plotting behind his
back i v ~ t hMuslim Egypt aganst thc Moligcil> in Persia Thc hated Nauruz was executed in 1297 and
Christlanb rejoic:ed
5
Boylc,, / i ! r n . 31)
: How.,rtl?
iiis~or:~.
.lJXX
Sporadic persecution of Christians continued throughout his region.
Though Yaballaha was allowed to build a great monastery at the capital, the
Patriarchate never completely regained either its former power or its assurance
of Government support. Occassionally, when the Ilkhan threatened to destroy
the citadel of Arbela, birthplace of East Syrian Christianity, because of
continuing troubling outbursts of violence
between Muslims and Christians,
the Patriarch was effec~ivein changing the strongman's mind.
' Throughout
this whole span of royal history, the major channel of continuous Christian
influence, apart from the Patriarchate itself, runs through the blood of royal
women from Sorkaktani to Uruk-Khatun.
Afier Abu Sa'id (1316-1335AD),
Tamerlane. who was a Muslim brought the unparalleded destruction of
churches. synagogues, and temples all across Asia from the western edge of
China to the Christian fortress of Symyrna on the Aegean Sea and as far south
as Indian Ilelhi.
i
Tamerlane, the Terror of the world to the Scene
He dreamed of reviving an Islamic caliphate. He boasted that he would
make Samarkand the capital of all Asia. Tamerlane zigzagged way upward by
cunning, courage, deceit, and terror. He destroyed seven hundred large
villages, wiped out the inhabitants and reduced all the Christian Churches of
Tiflis to rubble 'l'amerlane personally directed the slaughter as his warrior's
systematically colleted Christian heads as souvenirs. At Tana on the Black
1
Budge
2.
A few ycars laler. l o 1307 hc ordorcd lo p t i c u p Christ~anfaith and their churches to be destroyed. It may
havc been the courageous of the Christians in resisting this decree that so impressed one of the Mongol
generals named Chobur, a ~ e a l o u sMuslini, became known as a protector of the Christians. By then he
had risen to the highest milltar) position in the ilkhan Oljeitu's m y as "amir of amirs" (Commander-inchiel). a son-in-law of one dkhan (Oljcilu) and brother in law of another (Abu said).
3.
Abu Salds father. Oljeitu, was ilften oniwardly friendly and sometimes generous, that was found in him a
kind of hatred of the Chr~stians.He first ordered the East Syrian Church Patriarch to give up his
magnificent new monastery in Maragheh and the Church in Tabriz to be converted into mosques and
was dissuaded from this only with grea: difficult by his uncle, a Naiman or Kerait Prince, who argued
that ir would be lrnnccessarily provocative
Monhr 731.19
Sea, Muslims iri the city wcre spread, while the Christians were killed, sent
into slave?, or ransomed at enormous price. Sometimes, when Christians did
not oppose him, Tamerlane could treat them with great courtesy. Samarkand,
Tamerlane's maln capital. always had a sprinkling of Christians. They were,
however, mostly traders and prisoners. and there is no mention of an organized
church.
'
According to A.R Vlne, twenty years later Tamerlane swept through
Persia. Vine writes that we can only say with certainty that there were
churches at Baghdad, Mosul. Erbil, Nisibis, Bakerda (Gezira), Tabriz and
Maragheh. I'amerlane died in 1405 . it may not have been Tamerlane alone
who wiped out the church in Persia; ~thad been eroding steadily ever since the
Muslim conquest2. Before the century ended Tamerlane's successors proved
completely unable to hold the empire together. Persians took back Iran from
the Mongols. The Uzbeks in 1500AD defeated the last Central Asiatic ruler of
the line of Tamerlane in Samarkand In Mongolia the twenty seventh successor
of Genghis Khan died and left the blongolian east in anarchy in 1467. By then
a Chinese dynasty, the Ming came to power in China. As Mongols faded away
all the Asia north of the Himalayas was one more either Muslim or Chinese. If
there were any Christians left here and there, no one noticed them.
The decline of East Syrian Christianity in Mongol Empire
It is difficult to pinpoint any precise moment at which progress turned
into decline. It may be ar the rise of the Island is the first decisive turning
point. In the space of one year (1291-1295AD) the Emperor Kublai Khan
Protector of the Church in China died and in Persia the Ilkhan Ghazan
Islam. The death Kublai Khan signaled the
announced his conversion
approaching dissolution of the h4ongolian Empire in the Far East.
-
-
i
?
Boyie Ira,, 407
.
Vlne Churi1ii.s
159
-
-
-
--
---
G h a ~ a n ' s conversion turned the Persian sector of that empire
irreversibl) Muslim and carried w ~ t hit into the world of Islam most of Asia
from the western end ot the Great Wall to the Euphrates. In the next one
hundred years, the religious tolerance of Mongol imperial rule gave way to a
new destructive wave of wide-spead Mongolian ferocities fueled by
conquering Muslim zeal, and the shattered remnants of Asian Christianity
were left isolated in ever smaller pockets of desperation.'
Browne notes a vacancy of nine years (1369-1378AD) in the East Syrian
Church list and twenty five years (1379-1404AD) for the non Chalcedoninan
and suspects many more such vacancies went unrecorded.
The East Syrian
church had once directed a continental network of Christian influence and
expansion from its first tentative beginnings in Edessa, later in SeleuciaCtesiphon, and finally in Baghdad, which was left without a home on earth.
According to Bar Hebraeus's Chronography, in those days the foreign
peoples (the Mongols) stretched out their hands to Tabriz, and they destroyed
all the churches, The persecutions, and disgrace, and mocking and ignominy,
which the Christians suffered at this time, especially in Baghdad, words cannot
describe.' Abo1.1t the Mongolian period, Mingana gives a brief description
about the church life in Mongol empire. "ccording
to him there were nine
archdecons. eight doctors of ecclesiastical jurisprudence and of biblical
I
For mure dclails
: Brownc, (7irisrionri.y lacksori. .Ilunjiol, Juurn;ll 23, N w 3 . 4
2.
For more dcpails :
: Hookhum .ihmburluirir
3
4.
:
l i m b . Tun~rrlune :
Grousset
Empire
:
Browne ,
Christiuniry
Bar Hebraeus. Chroriogrophr 610
A Minganu quol.es from onc lombiionc, dated about !322 (Seleucid year 1627) : "this is the grave of
Shliha. thc celebrated commentator and teacher. who illuminated all the monasteries with light son of
Peter the aaugst r:ommcntPtor of ~visdom,hls voice range as high as the sound of a trumpet. There was
cviderlce of a total of 630 tornhsloncs. lie spcaks around of a possible million Christians among the
Turkish trlhcs of the Ctiagatin Khiinatc
183
interpretation, twenty-two preachers and an the imposing number of priests
which was inscribed in a an inscription, reported by D.A Chwolson. I
Christian practices were diverse. The East Syrian Christians maintained a
full sacramental life and observed the major festivals of the Christian year,
both within their church and in public procession. There is a church building,
which possessed both nabc and sanctuary, with an icon of the Virgin, a
baptistery, one chapel, and a special room where bread for the Eucharist was
baked. Curtains of gold silk brocade draped the interior as they did the tents of
the Khan Services of the East Syr~anChurch rite were often choral, incense
was used and f a t s were observed for the major festivals.
The tolerance of
the Khans made possible the continued appointments of East Syrian Christian
metropolitans and bishops throughout their empire3.
The Nature of the East Syrian Church in the Mongol Empire
Regarding the growth and nature of the East Syrian Church in the
Mongol empire., there were two places to be mentioned with special
references-Karakorum and Chinkiang4. William of Rubruck records that he
found crowds in regular attendance at the services and processions and
observed the baptism of sixty persons at the Easter. Mangoke is said to have
convened debates in 1254 at Karakorum among spokesmen from the various
religious communities. Poio also reported the presence of Christians and East
!
Christians i n Central Asia wcrs I I I sufticicnl nutnbers a t d well enough known to compel one popular
East Syrian Church hyrnn writcr named Kll;icn!s to compose a hymn for them. It begins, 'The Son of
Mary i s bore to u:;' and was urj!tr~iiv,th al!rrna!c stanzas jo Syriac and Mongolian.
: Moffell . li6slory 483
2.
Rubruck, was inciuded by the Ncsiormns ill thjs tirst discussion, which he repons fully. They also gave
him the use of a chapel and he finds amongst them monks who are "prudent men" (though others he
condemns as ignorant) He alsotound thc Ncsturianr fully capable of leading worship and teaching the
Gospel. all able to read the Uighur script. and capable also of presenting in writing a full chronicle of
Christian belief, from ( reation to tnc final judgment.
3.
Among the records cxtant are those appointed tbr Kitai (Mongolia), Kashgar, Sian-fu, Hami, Khanbaliq
(Peking),Tangut (Sinkiang), and South China 1490.
Stewan. Missionav Enrerprixrr. 151. 161. !88. 286 : Atiya , Histo,y, 262
4.
The cosmopolitan populace of Karakorum ~nc!uded Hungarian, Alan, Georgian, Ruthenian, Armenian
and Chaldran Christtans.
Syrian Churches 'in at least eleven other Chinese cities.' He found the largest
concentrations in the northwest along the old Silk Road. There was a seat of
an East Syrian Church metropolitan at Kashgar, and at Kanchou (Canpicion),
the capital of Kansu pro\ince2. Another area with many Christians was on the
~ . ~ Christian community
southeast China coast in the provinces - ~ h i n k i a n The
present there enjoyed official patronage.
Christian Monks and Hermits in Mongol Empire
At one time the East Syrian Church had seven monasteries in and
around the city of Chinkiang. All of them founded about the year 1279AD by
Mar Sargis who was a Turkish East Syrian Christian from Sarnarkand and has
a high official in the service of Kublai Khan. The monasteries built by Mar
Sargis around 128 1AD were given Chinese and Turkic names, which indicated
that Turkish monks musi have iived here perhaps beside some Chinese
brothers. The monastic centre at Khan Bariq could go back to earlier times.
There were also monastic establishments in the lower arches of the YangtzeKiang, especially in Chen-chiang and Yangchow.
Foundcd in the second century H.C.E., i t had been for centuries a terminus for one of the trade routes to
west A S I X It locatcd on ths south bank <if the Yangste River, where the Grand Canal crossed it, 140
miles frum the coast it had later beconic a Buddhist centre for pilgrimage. Buddhist monasteries were
extendrd under the Sung llynasly and a golden age of Confucian scholarship also began in the midtwel(ih centug..
1
3.
It n e s an important city on the empires trade routes. The East Syrian Christian'centre at Chinkiang was
between Nanking and Shanghai were the Yangtze River intersects with the Grand Canal.
: There were the 'three churches, which were large and beautiful'. One o f these was probably that East
Syrian Church monaster, in u,hrch Sorkaktani, mother of Kublai Khan, was buried. He mentioned
Camul (I<ami) the seat of a Eaa Syrtan Church bishop who had attended the consecration of the
Nestor~anpatriarch Uenha l o Persra in I2OhAD.
: Mule. ('hrisfians , 400-44.5
4.
These w e n monasteries wcrr :ruly the outcome ot'his Excellency's zeal. He was royal to the sovereign
and der'oted to the empire. no; seeking tu make himself conspicuous but only making his monasteries.
Of the monastic centres esrabllshed by hi:n. six were built in Chan-chiang and one in Lanchow. It also
throws light on the untiring efforts of Mar Sargis, who had been active as an official in that city. In spite
life. he was devoted to the propagation of the Christian
of all hi,nour!; beiitowul upon h ~ min pol~t~cal
faith
5.
Moilett . HLrrryv. 401
:
Moiilc
ihrrsrians,
145-155
Laymen played an important role in all walks of life including
commerce, administration and even politics. The monasteries were pillars of
religious and intellectual life. They were places of learning, and it is clear from
documents found that the East Syrian Christians in Yuan China had a literature
of their own. in Syriac in Turkish, and perhaps also in Chinese.
Beside the monastic institutions, there were also hermitages where
individual monks would !ive a life of seclusion rather than coenobitic one.
This was quite in accord with the Syrian tradition. Such hermits must have
lived in various secluded spots in the wide deserts and waste lands of Central
Asia as well. Monks were also active in court life, hence appeared on the
political scene and had contact with those who wielded power.' According to
them the purity of the soul. the sanctification of life and the consecration in
God were the aims of hermetic life.
Prominent East Syrian Christians during the. Mongol Rule.
In the early Mongol history, there were prominent
East Syrian
Christians from the Turkish tribes. Naimans, Keraits, Uighurs and Onguts
who had various positions in the administration of the new realm.
It is
interesting to note that he high military official had no inhibitions in
expressing then Christian affiliation publicly. Besides being army leaders, East
Syrian C'hr~stiansof Turkish and Mongol extraction also had high positions in
The father and grandfather of Mar Sargis, an East Syrian
the admin~strat~on.
Christians from Samarkand working in the service of Kublai Khan, were court
physicians. The most prominent of Christian ladies among the Mongols was
- --
I
2.
- --
-
--
Budge , blanks, 94
One among them wcrc . one. Chlnkai, a Kcriiit born around 1171 AD, was companion ofGenghis Khan.
He rose lu such a raiik that in nonhern ('ncna that, no cdict could be issued without his signature. He
was 'Secretary of thc State' undcr (ienghls as well as Ogedei and he held the position of a 'Chancellor'
under Kujuk. Qadaq, had scrvcd under (ir-nghis as an arms leader, made 'Administrator of the Realm'
under Kuyuk. Holghai, the Chancellor of Mangu, the fourth Khan, was also a Christian from the tribe of
the Kera~tOne of the leading mil~larymen in Yuan China in the early fourteenth century was a Central
Asian Turkish official of East Syrlan clrurih The gravestone of his young Christian wife had recently
been discovered. It I S ernbell~shedby a crohb on a lotus.
: Ian Gillnriin Christian , 288 quoted fro~n. Gengshimin Klimkel Eine neue nesrorinische, 14, 170.
Sorkaktani. who was active politically even after the death of her husband
Tului, son of. Genghis. The East Syrian Christian Onguts were administrators
of the Mongols in China and participated the cultural and intellectual life of
the time Christian physicians worked for the Mongols Central Asia. There
were also East Syrian Christians from Central Asia who became recognized
physicians in Mongol Empire. There is evidence to the effect that the East
Syrian Christian Turkish officials in the south Chinese ports must have had
contact with European merchants
'
East Syrian Church Organisation in Mongol Empire.
We dit! nat have any systematic picture about the hierarchical
organization in the East Syrian Church during the Mongol's time. The
foundations 0 1 Asian medieval E:ast Syrian Christianity and its expansion
across the continent were laid as early as the Patriarchate of the great TimothyI towards the end of the eight-century. He reorganized the metropolitans, into
two classes Electoral Metropolitans and Missionary Metropolitans with the
interests of a greater internal administrative regularity and more efficient
evangelistic o ~ ~ t r e a c h . ~
Electoral rnetropolitans were dominant in the domestic administration
of the church.
Missionary nietropolitans more accurately designated as
Metropolitans of the Exterior" \vere located too far away to take part in
elections and in effect were virtually independent of the control of the home
church in Persia. By the end of the thirteenth century, the East Syrian Church
2.
The law book of T~mothy-lis entitled ' I hc Rules of'Ecclesiastical Judgements and of Succession' and
is presented in the form of 99 decisions. It consists of three p a t s dealing with (i) the ecclesiastical
hierarchy, (ii) marriage and (iii) succcssion The letters written by Mar Timothy which witness his
rnultit?~rrnactivities are also famous. I h c discipline of Timothy-1 was enforced even in the farthest
regrons of Indian and China
For more details
S A C H l . Syrische Rechtshuc!~er.11, pp 5.3-1 17, LABOURT, De Timotheo I, pp 50-36.
: OBRAUN, Timothei Patriarchae I, Epistolae, in CSCO, vols, 74-75 (Syr, 30-31) Louvain, 1953.
The Synodicon contains also $1discuss~onofTimothy I with Al-Madi; Cf SELB, Kirchenrecht, .63 n.68.
Patriarchate in Baghdad, was seeking to re-establish and extend its hierarchical
network ofmissionary bishoprics across central Asia to the Pacific.
The
precise shape, locations. and numerical strength of East Syrian Church
organization cannot be traced with any credible assurance. Some Episcopal
dioceses were planted for a time and disappeared. The episcopal seats of some
bishops appointed to nomadic tribes were probably only tent chapels mounted
on wagons, known as movable 'cathedrals".
The major metropolitanates of the exterior were Ray Rewardashir and
Merv. It was Timothy4 who reorganized Rewardashir and Merv from electoral
to missionary status. Timothy-I created also new missionary metropolitans for
Tibet Sarbaziyeh, and further southeast beyond Rewardashir towards India. In
the Mongol period, five metropolitans were created along the old silk road
namely Heart, Samarkand, Kashgar. Almalik or Tangut, and Navekath, the last
of which was in Uighur territory north of ~ a s h ~ a r . ~
During the reign of Kublai Khan a metropolitanate was created for the
new Mongol Capital of China at Peking. Missionary metropolitans were
empowered to consecrate new bishops in their territories and missionary
bishops were entitled to be assisted by one or more archdeacons who were
usually chosen from the indigenous clergy.' The East Syrian church in this
period was persistently expanding east and south, towards India and China and
supporting its growth with as structure of highly independent East Syrian
I.
Marco Pulu says aho~itthis s~lualianlikc !!:IS
They are called Nestorian and Jacobite and Armenians
and they are the worst herc1:cs . They ih.:vc a great Patriarch (who) makes archbishops, bishops and
abbots and all other rclates p~iestsand ciencs and sends them every where to preach, into all the pans o f
India and to the Carai (China). and into i3audac (Baghdad) and heretics made heretics...' But from the
records uf the East Syrian Church synods in Persia and from various sometimes conflicting sources, i t
is possible to discern ageneial autltne oithe building blocks of the East Syrian church in its transient
period of widest glory.
: Moffett . , History. 449, quotcti frurn Pui<r./)escrrplion, 100
2
Motktt
H8sloq ,464 Q u o t ~ dI-orn P e l l l u ~ Kecherches Sur les , 4
3
Molktt
HIS~O?
, 449, quoled from Polo lIesrrrp!~on,100
Church missionarq episcopate.' The remarkable election of Yahballaha-I11
resulted due to the important missionary success. It had opened a new period
in the history of' Far Eastern Christianity after its decline in the ninth century.
Hence the East Syrian Christians succeeded more and more in penetrating the
Central Asian native population of the Turco-Mongol tribes.
Enthronement of Yaballaha -111 as the Mongol Catholicos-Patriarch
On 2 l February 128 1 AD ihe Catholicos-Patriarch Denha I expired in
Baghdad. Yahballaha-111 had been elected Catholicos Patriarch of the East
Syrian church.' Yahballaha-111 was not a Syrian from Mesopotamia. He was
from China, a member of the Turco-Mongol people of Central Asia. This was
an event that could clearly demonstrate that the Syrian Church of the East had
7
grown into a universal one. -
Yahballaha who had really been chosen for the position of the
Metropolitan of the ecclesiastical province of China, was then elected
Catholicos-Patriarch. He ascended the throne in November 1281AD and was to
hold it for exactly thirty-six years. Yahaballaha -111 had become the Patriarch
of the East Syrian Church at a time still characterized by the enmity of
Mongols against Islam and their kindly disposition towards the Christian
people. The Mongol ruler heaped all honours on the Mongol Patriarch. He
1.
2.
Moffett
. iltsroty . 464
His Biography included history ol'hls Patriarchate originally wrinen in Persian is well preserved in a
Syriac Version. Its English translat~onwas by Budge M o n k . 119-306
: Histaire de Mar Yab-laha (Ed) Budjan 1-205
.
3.
Denha I who had jusl hecomc thc Cathol~cos-Patriarchin the autumn o f 1265 recognized the utility of
the forrigti monks in view o f thci! double affinity to the East Syrian Church and to the Mongol ruling
class. So at first they were eiigagcd by the newly elected head o f the church to supply him with the
Ilkhan's certificate of appoinrmciil: and thcn they were designated as candidates for two exalted
positions ol the Church in thc f i r East, whlcli the Catholicos-Patriarch Denha had to fill in 1280. The
elder Rabban Sauma was appaintcii \/isitor-(feoeral' for the Christian communities in the far East, and
the younger Marl: \r;ls conscu~~teil
'blctr.,poli:;~n 01' the SLX of Kathay and Wang'China by the ncw
name ai"Ynhballahn
gave him the authority to act in the name of the Ilkhan and granted him the
privilege to collect taxes fbr the purpose of the church.
The official centre ol'the church was still the city of Baghdad with the
Patriarch's residence in the tbrmer Abbasid palace, which had been transferred
to the Christians after the Mongol conquest of the city and the murder of the
last Caliph. But Yahballaha himself rather preferred the neighborhood of the
Mongol court in Azerbaijan, mostly dwelling in the city of Maragha, where he
built two great churches with a new residence, using it to welcome the IlKhans
as his guests.
The Patriarch's situation and the conditions of his church soon took a
turn for the worse. The death in 1294 of his spiritual father and intimate friend
Rabban Sauma was a hard blow. for Yahballaha. After one year, revolts shook
the IlKhanid state, in which Islam became powerful. The Muslim people of
Persia took advantage of the new situation and full of hate they attacked the
Christians who had been favoured until then over the Muslims. The Muslims
killed many Christians, destroyed the churches or turned them into mosques;
broke into the Patriarch's residence to pillage it, and repeatedly ill-treated the
Catholicos-l'atrisrch and robbed all properties of his Church.
Nevertheless. there were a few happy events in that dark half of
Yahabaliaha's lifetime: He completed the construction of a great monastery at
Maragha. and he built another. monastery in the metropolitan city of Arbela,
which, however, \vas destroyed b) the Muslims soon afterwards.' The
Catholicos-Patriarch of the East Syrian Church died on fifteenth November
1317AD, and he was laid to rest in the Monastery at Maragha.
However
Yahaballaha he was not equal to those of his predecessors who had become
famous in the history of Syrian Christian theology and Syriac literature. In
contrast to. those scholars who had sat on the East Syrian Patriarchal throne,
the Mongol Patriarch from the Far East was only poorly acquainted with the
Syriac language of his church, its liturgy and theology. Yahballaha himself
was clearly aware of h ~ slimitations and therefore hesitant to become the
patriarch' But Yahballaha gained importance as the person who in all the
history of the East Syrian Christian was the only representative of its easternmost people chosen to be its spiritual head.
The period of Yahballa's bast Patriarchate stretching over the rule of no
less than eight Ilkhan's was 9f much importance in East Syrian Church history.
Yahballaha I11 headed his Church at its turning point from strength to decline.
During his patriarchate he consecrated seventy-five metropolitans and bishops
with a number of sees extending from Tarsus and Jerusalem in the West to
South India and China in the East. * But Yahballaha was the head of a Church,
which suffered from the hatred of the Muslims in the then Islamic Ilkhanid
state. About a hundred years after Yahballaha's death, and finally after the
cruel canlpdlgn of l imur Lcnk, thz most important missionary church of the
Middle Ages had nearly disappeared after the break down of the Mongol
~mpire.'
Christianity then was spread even among those people, which in the
early thirteenth century was united by Genghis Khan to be the nucleus of his
growing Mongol Empire, so that the Great Khans themselves came into
contact with the Christian religion.
The East Syrian Christians, expelled after
the fall ofthe T'i~nngdynasty, now reentered China in the thirteenth century
I
'I am defic~cntin education and in eccles$as~icaldoctrine, and the member of my tongue halteth. How
can I possibly becomc your Patrialch' And, mureover, I am wholly ignorant of your language, Syriac,
which i t is absolutely neccsar) for tho Patriarch to know'
: Budge , . / u , i k , I53
2.
lbid, , 204
3.
This church in the past had been thc spiritual centre of many people with diverse languages. This really
universal church was obliged to withdraw into itself and to make out rather miserable existence in
seclusion in the remote mountains of the north Mesopotamian Kurdistan. The East Syrian Church
entered the modern period as the small Christian community of the 'Assyrians', but 'it still lefi behind it
an imperishable memory that may \\,ell prove an incentive, in the matter <oyaltyto Christ and devotion to
His servlce. to the more highly hvoured churches of to- day.
with a more visible and better-recognized status than they had ever achieved
under the T'ang. In the next one hundred years the religious tolerance of
Mongol imperial rule gave way to a new destructive wave of wide spread
Mongolian ferocities fueled by conquering Muslim zeal, and the shattered
remnants of Asian Christianity were left isolated in ever smaller pockets of
desperationi
Chinese against the Mongols
A long rule usually implies strength and stablitiy of the empire, but
not in the case of hlongol Emperors especially the fourteenth and last of a line
of Great Khan that !stretched back through a hundred and fifty years of Mongol
victories to Genghis. Chinese rose against the Mongols. The South invaded
the North under the anti-Mongol slogan, 'These barabarians are created to
obey and not to command a civilized nation'.* The Mongol armies came out
of the North to the aid of the dynasty, instead of attacking the rebels. It caused
to revive the old rivalries of the descendants of Ogetai, Tolui. It led to civil
war - one Mongol army against another.
'l'oghan Timur abandoned Peking in panic. The Chinese kept
advancing. They defeated. pursued and butchered the Mongols all across north
China and into central Asia They burned the Mongol palaces and tore down
the walls of Peking. They destroyed all traces of China. The new China was to
be isolationist, nationalist. and orthodox Confucian, ruled by a completely
China-centered dynasty, the Ming (1368- 1644AD)
With the defeat of the Mongols, China turned Chinese in religion. It is
just as likely thxt East Syrian Christians and foreigners were killed
indiscriminately in the pursuit of the Mongols. During this time without
- --I
Moffett. /ii.~iory,47 1
2.
Prawdlil Mongol, 386
3
Saunders, iii.srory l 5 l
.
--
-
--
-Ilusrai, Kublikhon, 141 f
Preudin. Mongol. 386
192
foreign support a church that had become dependent upon it withered away in
China. The Church fell with the old dynasty. But the Christians of the Yuan
dynasty compounded the errors of their forerunners under the T'ang who had
disappeared with their imperial patrons four hundred years before. The China
of the fourteenth century however could not but fail to note the enmity
between East Syrian Christians and their newly arrived rivals, the Catholics,
and the Chinese considered both foreign. Compounding the handicap this
imposed on the Church, the Mongol dynasty itself was foreign.
To the Chinese, Church appeared as a foreign religion protected and
supported by a foreign government. Catholic missions gave the impression of
being even more foreign rhat the East Syrian Christians who were almost
entirely Mongol, for they received far more visible support from outside China
that ever was true of the East Syrian Christians either in the 9" or 14' century'.
Interaction of Cultures between the East Syrian Church and the Mongol.
In the course of East Syrian Church missionary enterprises, some
cultural elements from the Christian West penetrated deeply in a manifold
manner into the life of the native Christian population modifying their Central
Asian native traditions. A11 the cultural influences from Christianity in the
West concern only the tiny realrn of the Central Asian Christian people. The
chronology, alphabet, literature and art broke up the narrow frame of Central
Asian Christianity. But they did not open the door to the non-Christian world
around.
I'hilology is competent in the history of the development of the central
Asian alphabets.
It has been known for a long time that the Mongolian
characters oflicially used in the administration of the Mongol Empire, were
derived step by step from the 'IJighur script' in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centurie~.~
Since this 'Uighur Script is quite similar to the Syriac alphabet,
1.
Moule,Chrrsr:ons. 192
2.
Hagc. Chrfsfia,> Influrnci, . 55-67
:
Mollrri . Hisfop, quoted from Yule, Cathay, 3:179
scholars had come to the conclusion that the Uighur characters directly
depended on the Syriac ones especially on the East Syriac style, and they
regarded this as a result of Ea3t Syrian Missionary activities in Central ~ s i a . It
'
was an impressive influence on the part of East Syrian Christianity far beyond
its own Christian realm. The relationship of the 'Uighur script' to the Syriac
alphabet was so direct, because the relationship of both, Syriac and Uighur
alphabets were not that of 'mother and daughter", but rather of "aunt and
niece':
The Uighur characters were independent of the Syriac ones. They had
descended from an older Aramaic alphabet, from which the Syriac
"Estrangela" also was d e r i ~ e d .The
~
far Eastern Christians themselves,
composed their texts in the native languages and made use not only of the
Syriac 'Estrangela', but a!so of the Soghdian and mostly of the Uighur
alphabet3
When in the thirteenth century the less civilized Mongols, for the
administration of their net\ empire, accepted the script of the subjugated but
more civili~edUighurs. The Turco-Mongol Christian people also took part in
this process and under Mongol rule. ascended to the highest ranks in the
government, including the ministerial
office^.^ Although the above mentioned
Central Asian alphabets were not the immediate descendants of the script of
i.
The impurtance o f the lvlonpolian alphabet (with its off-shoots including the Manchu alphabet) for the
cultural life 111 Central Asia was replaced h) the characters by the characters o f the Russian Cyrillic
alphabet in recent times
Hage . Chrisrimn in/lur,,<e. 63 yici,ie,i Iron1
2.
(;i>t:iiirz
EinJiehrung, 62-72
This knowledge, howevcr, abou! tlic system o l dependence on each other does not deprive the East
Syrian Christians of dll significa~ice because they had neveRheless a share i n the history of the
development of the Central Asian alphabels. although in a less striking manner than was assumed i n the
past.
Hage <'i,i.i\i~~rn
mjlur.,,i
63 i y i , o i ~ ~ti-oiri
i
i,
3.
Hage, Chrisrzun Itzjlue,,~e.70
4
H o w o r r i ~,Iiisolry. Vo! 1
(;irt"iii~
Ei~$<e/incny.62-72.
134. Ihl.lh4.l87. 2lO. 723. 741
:
Stewarf, Missiono~Enlerprises,102
the Syrian missionaries. Eastern Christians had an important role in the
cultural l i f of Asia. In the service of the Mongol rulers, they wrote the
Uighur language and taught
it
to the illiterate majority.
According to the Franciscan Friar William, in the middle of the
thirteenth century, the secretaries of the Mongols were principally Uighurs,
whose script could be read by nearly all-native Christians. Several Christian
priests educated the sons of !he Mongol nobility and of the imperial family of
the Great Khan. Some o!'those prominent Central Asian Christians are known
by their names.
1
This Christian participation in a culturally important place did not
disappear in the course of history without leaving any trace. For although the
Central Asian scripts thernselves were not the immediate result of the Christian
mission there, the characteristic style of writing them was a typical one
.2
The
prototype of this cannot be found in the world of the culturally dominant
Chinese who, indeed, write likewise in vertical lines, but arrange them in the
opposite direction, from the right to the left. The prototype of the UighurMongolian arrangement of the lines from the left to the right , can be found
only in the Syriac script of the Eastern Christians. Indeed, the Syrians did not
generally write thelr documents horn the top downward in vertical lines, but
written in just this way. 3
there exists several Syriai ~nsc~iptions
I. An Engl~slitranslation o f the report o f \billtam o f Rubruck is given by the journey of William of
to the Eastern parts o f thc World. 1235-53 translated from Latin and edited with an
Rubruck
introductory noIicc.
Rackh~ll.Journey. 1'01.4 I S i J 159. 189. LO6
2.
Hans Jen~en,draws our attentiun to the [act that the Mongolian script with its daughters, and sometimes
the Uighur script as well. arrangc the lcttsrs not horizontally hut vertically placing the lines side by side
from the iefi to the iipht.
3.
The alrcady mcntbunzd tornhstoncs in 111s ilica o f Lake ljsyk-kul thirteenth and fourteenth centuries as
well as partly Syriac monon,i.nt of Shl:t~~tUand even several earlier inscriptions in the Syrian Middle
East ltself
Hagr .C/,rislian tnJl!ience, 64
.
.
I he Mongol style of writing, according to the Syriac prototype, would
exactly correspond to our knowledge about Christian secretaries among the
Mongols and the presence of Syriac as the liturgical language of the East
Syrian Church. This is the contribution of Philology regarding the influence of
Eastern Christianity on the wider world of Central Asia outside the Christian
community
Regarding the contribution of science and religion about this issue,
Hans- Joachim Klimkeit has recently published about relations of Christology
with Buddhology in the Central Asian art.' He deals with the syncretic use of
the symbol of the cross on the portraits of Buddha in a West Tibetan
monastery in the eleventh or twelfth century. In the Buddhist use of the cross
he supposes the influence of the ~anichaeans'.
In the manifold religious world of Central Asia, the various religions
interact each other especially when their adherents had to live closely together
in an area. It was, characterized by native Shamanism and its spirit of
tolerance. It was also conducivc to all kinds of syncretism. The Central Asian
Manichaeans, in using thr. symbol of the cross, were inspired
by
their
Christian neighbours, especially because the sign of the cross was deeply
venerated by the Central Asian Christians at the centre of their piety, as
understands from many excavated cross-shaped amu~ets.~
Afier the settlement of Buddhist monks in a deserted Christian
monastery near Khanbaliq (Peking). and at Tunhwang in Western China, they
I.
His Houk IS H. J. Ki~mkeit. L)ai Kreuzessyrnbol in der zentralasiatischen Religious begegnung, zum
Verhaeltnis von Chrtstologit: und Huddhologie in der zentralasiatischen Kunst, in : Zeitschrifi fuer
Religions
und geistcgeschichir. vol. i korln, 19791, 90-1 15. (Relations o f Christology with
Budhology in G:ntraI Asian Art' )quoted in
Hage ,Christian inflz~ence,65
2.
Because ur~ginalChristian ideas could be more easily accepted by the Buddhists, if they were presented
in the format o f a dualistic-docetistic Christology, represented in the religious world o f Central Asia by
the influential community o f the Manichaeans
Hage .Chrrsrian influence, 66
took over the portrait of an East Syrian Saint, interpreting him as ~odhisattva.'
Syrian Christian presence in its broad missionary activity did not remain
without any cultural consequences to the world of Central Asia.
Syrian
influence on the native Christian people of Inner Asia disappeared along with
these Christians themselves and nothing but some archeological relics
remained. Syriac Christianity could act upon in the world of Central Asia
beyond the limits of its own (;hristian communities.
According to the scholars like, W. Hage, the results gained until now
gives us hope for more !n the future, to be gained from the collaboration of
Church History with History of Religion, Central Asiatic Philology, Ethnology
and History of Arts.
We are still waiting for the final verdict about the
importance of Syriac Christianity and its tradition for the culture and
civilization of Central ~ s i a ' .
Asian Christianity was in some of its features different from that form
familiar to Western Christians. The witnesses of East Syrian Christians across
Central Asia to China in the East marked the Church in Iran. The openness to
Central Asian Christians to the cultural world in which they lived and their
determination ':o adhere to the faith as it was expressed in the Syriac and East
Syrian tradition ;ind the \villingness on the part of Christians in China to
address their compatrioks informs of language understandable to them using
even Taoist and Buddhist terminology to express the tradition of faith were all
factors which helped East Syrian Christianity in Central Asia to survive.
I.
They actually placed s a n e texts of Chr~sltdnChinese literature in their famous library in the 'Caves of
the thousand Buddhas' along w ~ t hother writing of non-Buddhist origin. Regarding monastery, portrait,
and library, Saeki , Neslorimr Docun,i,i,~~.429-433 , quoted from Schurchammer Der "Tempel des
Kreuzcs. vol. 5
Waley . ('hrist or L3odhisattv:i (11-529
2
Hagc . iijrulriln irqitrence . 66
CHAPTER- V
EAST S Y R U N CWSTIANITY IN SOUTH. SOUTH-EAST ASIA AND
NORTH-EAST ASIA
The beginning of Christianity in Asia especially South East and East
Asia (except China), has not onl) been neglected or ignored but also distorted
by the historians for a long time.
For the majority of the western historians,
the history of the churches in Asia belongs to the history of the western
missionary movement and the churches do not have an independent story of
their own. Both the Roman Catholic missionaries and the Protestant
missionaries from Europe and America claim that, during the sixteenth,
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they carried Christianity to the various
states and regions of south - - eastern Asia - Burma, Malay Peninsula, Siam and
parts of what are known collective!y as Indo China.
'There is evidence to show that Christianity found its way into South
East and East Asian countries. even before the coming of the western
missionaries, through the efforts of the East Syrian Christian merchants and
missionaries from Persia or India or China or from all the three places. There
are a number of writers who acknowledge that Christianity was widespread in
Asia before 1500 A l l . According ro the scholars like A Mingana, P. Y. Saeki,
A. R. Vine and Atiya, there were episcopal and metropolitan sees recorded for
the East Syrian Church from the fhurth to sixteenth centuries inter alia for
India and China. The Metropolitan sees of India and China included within
their jurisdiction a number of Southeast Asian episcopates.
The evidences of the Christian communities
In South Asla and East Asla there is evidence of Christian communities
formed wherever 'Persian'. 'Arab' or 'Indian' trade became established. The
trading and other contacts between Persia and South and South East Asia were
apparently well established at least from the fifth century onwards. Trade and
cultural exchanges among India, Southeast Asia, China, etc. had intensified
both by land and sea routes.
East Syrian Church monks frequently travelled
with merchants, and merchants themselves sometimes became monks
I.
Evidences from Manuscripts, Crosses and Inscriptions
Some manuscript evidences in early chronicles and correspondence
confirm this for such places as Ceylon, Malaya, Indo-China, and .lava.'
The
evidence thus far discovered for the period seventh to fifteenth centuries from
the sites in south-east Asia, includes inscriptions, crosses, frescoes and ruins,
along with contemporary manuscript evidence.
It must be emphasized ho\ve\ler that these form only part of a very
complex series of' pictures that are still being completed. John England
mentions some of the places in Asia where inscriptions, crosses, frescoes,
paintings and manuscripts and such evidence of Christian history are found.'
By the sixth century. we have crosses and inscriptions from Sri Lanka and
Turkestan (where some early manuscripts were also found); and by the eighth
century, Sian-fu-stele, documents from Gobi sites, inscriptions from central
Japan and Russian Turkestan (which has frescoes and church remains also)
along with large bodies of the writing of the golden age of Syriac literature
from west Asia. With local writings, these have been found across the region,
especially in South India and West China. In the next three centuries would
be added the large collections of crosses and tombstones from Kirghizstan
(ninth to fourteenth centuries), others from central and north China; relics in
Burma and Malaya; crosses, inscriptions and documents in Tibet and South
China; along with contemporary manuscript evidence for Christian activity in
Syria, Iran, Turkestan, [ndo-China, Sumatra, and China (north and south).
It is believed to have bcen written in Mesopotamia some where
between the seventh and tenth centuries, and presents the 'unfolding story of
?a&,~, Vol I . 1 Y f
I.
Wolters 6.orIy. 68
2.
Mingana. i a r l y Spruiid,473 - Vinc , (.'itziirihrs . 112, : Saeki , Documenfs , 347 : Atiya , Hixtory, 265
3.
John. t l i s r u ~ 93
.
,
Collcs
,
all the major cultures and religions encountered by Christianity as it travelled
across Asia from Syria to China.
I
Paintings, Carvings and Artefacts.
.A wide variety of Christian art forms from the period of the sixth to the
fourteenth centuries were disco\,rred across the region, which comes in the
localities between Mesopc~tarniain the west, Korea in the east and Kerala in
the South. The form and :;ymholism of the art and inscriptions show clearly
that the
East Syrian church was able to express Christian truth in the art-
forms and imager): of central and east Asian culture. * Many versions of the
lotus and the cross have been discovered.
Among the artefacts and
implements on which has been inscribed Christian symbolism, is a large iron
corn-measure from Tibet, decorated in blue and silver with a large East
Syrian Church cross. 4 A large metal incense-burner, shaped in the form of a
large chalice, comes front Semiryechensk in the ninth to tenth centuries.
Deeply carved in relief upon it are scenes of the Last Supper.
Two silver
dishes from the eighth to tenth centuries, although found in the south and
central Ural mountains, probably originated in Semiryechensk also. 6
These sho~c,both how early Asian Christianity became rooted in the
local cultural contexts and yet maintained distinctive Christian features. They
demonstrate a freedom i n shaping content and artistic style. The study and
interpretation of Christian artifacts, recently found in the Department of
1. John. i<~~.scarches.
I33
: Sc<~,.t.
;ls;o, 25
2.
Klimke~r.Chrirliuil :lrl. 4''
3.
A cc~rtrillsymbol uithe incer:ii~li;,n was tliu mstern cross, standing in a lotus. The cross is always empty
and similar in shape to thc Maltese cross, although often embellished with serifs and pearls at the
extremit~es. With the lotus beneath, the symbol therefore signifies the historical events of the Gospels
within the spiritual quest, and purity, of'ilsian religiosity. The versions of lotus and cross sometimes also
embellished with plant-life. clouds, a n ~ ~ n i lor
l s angels. But full scale paintings and frescoes were also a
medium used creati\'ely thn,ughuut centrdl and eastern Asia.
4.
Sack, . Uocumenrs piales 1 & 1 I
5.
Tucci. hen. Himalii,vo pioir 112
6.
Sarki. i)~xumenrs,418,428,434
: Mi,~ili.,(~'hrislions
Plate
No.I,78ff, Fig.1 l : Dauvillier, Histoire. 14
oriental Antlquitieb. State Hermitage Museam of St. Peters burg, in particular,
promises to greatly amplib oar knowledge.
Letters
A wide range of letters. written principally in the Syriac and Arabic, are
documented from a period of more than one thousand years. Metropolitans
and Patriarchs of the East Syrian Church have written many of these to, or
with various purposes regarding the Church administration, ecclesiastical
affairs etc. The letters of the Metropolitans were required to be sent to the
Patriarch at least one in three to six years although references to them appear
in chronicles and other documents. The great majority of them are devoted to
administrative or doctrinal matters. There are other letters written by Patriarchs
such as Timothy I, in response to reports or requests from bishops in such
places as Turkestan. India and China. Other correspondence, comes from the
Franciscan n~issionartestravelling in Cathay. John of Montecorvino, who was
in Mongolia and China 1291-1323, wrote from Khanbaliq, of the establishment
of congregations and choirs. of work in translation and church building, and
pleads for more colleagues. I
Thc eLidences have t~eencollected by scholars and travellers over many
centuries and subjected to cnrcful study especially since the work of Assemani
in the eighteenth century. Much of the new evidence now available is in the
work of the Syriac and Arabic scholars, specialists in medieval church history,
or of historians studying the early trade routes linking west Asia and east by
land or sea.After discussing many technical and critical problems involved in
the study oi'the Asian history. John England states that :. . . . . . . . and drawing upon tlie range of evidence now available to us, it is
possible to outline the presence of the Christian communities from Syria
in the west to Japan in the north -- east and as far as Java in the south east by the first half of the eighth century.. . . . . . 2
I
?
Young, Pairiorcll. 141-153
John , R e s r o r i h i ~ 131
~.
: M 11gl11.1.i1~~rilizti.c.
168. 276,257
: Moule, Christians, 166-216
T h e a c c o u n t of Cosmos lndicopleustes
The earliest
apparently eyewitness accounts of the Christian
communities in south-east Asia, are those of Cosmos Indicoplcustes. Cosmos
Indicopleustes speaks of the Christian communities in Socotora, India, Ceylon,
Pegu (Burma), Cochin-Cliina (southern Vietnam), Siarn and Tonquin (northern
Vietnamj '. Cosmos observes:'This is a large oceanic island lying in the Indian sea. By, the Indians it is
called Sieledibe, but by the Greeks Taprobane, and therein is found the
hyacinth stone. It lies on the other side of the pepper country. Around it
are numerous small islands all having fresh water and cocoanut trees.
They nearly all have deep water close up to their shores. The great island,
as the natives report, has a length of three hundred gaudia, that is, of nine
hundred miles, and it is of the like extent in breadth. There are two kings
in the island, and ihey are at feud the one with the other. The one has the
hyacinth country, and the other the rest of the country where the harbour
is, and the centre of trade. It is a great mart for the people in those parts.
The island has also a church of Persian Christians who have settled there,
and a Presbyter who is appointed from Persia, and a Deacon and a
complete ecclesiastical ritual. But the natives and their kings are heathens.
In this island they have many temples,and on one, which stands on an
eminence, there is a hyacinth as large as a great pine-cone, fiery red, and
when seen flashing from a distance, especially if the sun's rays are playing
round it, a matchless sight. The island, being as it is, in central position,
is much frequented by ships from all parts of India and from Persia and
Ethiopia, and it likewise scnds out many of its own.. . .
7 2
1
I t is b c l ~ r ~ tnat
r d Liismos ails a I'ersiai) (.hristian. it is understandable if his main interest was in the
Perslan Christian c(irnrnunit>cs of all placcs which he mentioned in his book. Moreover, he did not
personall? visit 01' the placcs he rnentionrd in his book. He did not make any claim to have made a
completc survey of [he Christianity in those places. He also states :' "Ido not know whether there be
any Christians in thc parts bcyorid it'
Ceylon lhas bet:n known by Inany names. 111 Sanskrit works i t is called Lanka. Megasthenes, (300 B.C).,
calls i t I aprobaneli is regarded as a transliteration of 'l'amraparni, copper-coloured leaf, a name given
to tlic island b:i its Indian conqueror. Vilayarhis name i s found in its Pali form, Tambaparni, in Asoka's
inscription on the girnar rock. Some arc, however, o f opinion that Taprobane is a slightly-altered form
of Dwipa-Ravana (Island uC Ravana) a h the country was called by Brahmanical writers. From the
Periplus and Ptolerny we learn that Faprobane was anciently called Simoundou, but in his own time,
salike, i e . the country of the Salai. I-lure we have in a slightly-altered form the Siele-diva o f Cosmos,
for diva i s but a form o f dwlpa, the Sanskrit for island. Both salai and siele have their common source in
sihalam (pronounced as Silam) the Pali form o f the Sankrit sinhala, a lion. To the same source may be
traced all its other iiames, such as Serci~divus,Sirlediba Serendib, zeilan, Sailan and Ceylon. As there
are no l ~ o n sin Ceylon, sinhaia ,must be takcri to mean a lion-like man- Vbaya.
.
: Co~mo.,.Top~~graptiyBook
1 I I'agc 363.364
In another passage, Cosmos says :
.....even iri Taprobane, an island in further India, where the Indian sea is,
there is a church of Christians, with clergy and a body of believers, but I
I
know not whether there be any Christians in the parts beyond it.. .
From the above observations of Cosmos, it is often assumed that in
Ceylon in the sixth century thcre were only East Syrian Christians from Persia
who settled there. But there is no indication about the indigenous Christians
there.
Though the arrival of Christianity in Ceylon is not certain, probably it
will be earlier than the sixth century as there were Christian communities in
south India from the first centuly onwards. The East Syrian influence might
have been felt in Ceylon through Persian merchants and East Syrian Church
missionaries or perhaps through the St. Thomas Christians in south India.
However, the early medieval Christian communities in Taprobane appear to
have grown because of the activity of the East Syrian Christians and the Indian
St.Thomas Christians on the marine routes between the Mediterranean and
China. Cosmos describes the Christians in Ceylon in another part of his book.
Male (Mcllabar) where the pepper grows, there is also a church and at
another place called Calliana there is moreover a bishop, who is appointed
from Persia .....Theisland of Dioscorides (Dvipa Sukhadara (Sanskrit
word) :ie, Isiund Abode of Blissj..... the inhabitants speak Greek, .....there
are clergy who receive their ordination in Persia and are sent on to the
Island and there is also a multitude of Christians.. . .I met some of its Greek
speaking people ....among the Bactrians and Huns and Persians and the
rest of the Indians, . .... there is no limit to the number of churches with
Bishops and very large communities of Christians people as well as many
martyrs, and monks 3 1 s ~living as hermits.. ...2
A series of inscripaons crosses and coins record and contemporary
accounts reveal the presence of Christians from both the north-central and later
-- -- - ..
-
-
I.
Cosmui. I'rii,ographr. Rook I I . l'dgc 365
2.
This pdssagc clearly indicates that thc popuiat~onand intermixture of foreigners Arabs, Indians, and
even Greeks who were enpged in commercc.' Here the presence offhe foreign Christian high officers at
the service of Sinhala k~ngsfrom 473-508AD i s also mentioned.
:
Cosmos, 7opogrtaphy. Book N 0 : 3 I 18- 120
south western kingdoms. East Syrian Christian crosses have been found in
several places such as :inuradhapura.
Gintumpitya.
Kotte (east of Colombo) and
I
Anuradhapura: A Centre of Christianity in Ceylon
Anuradhapura, in North Central Kingdom, which held authority over
other k~ngdomsof the island, uds [he capita! of the north-central kingdom
from the second centur! HC to the eleventh century AD.
It was also an
important ~nternationalcentre for pilgrimage, trade and creative arts. Along
with Greek and Tami! traders, there was also by the fifth century, a colony of
Persian merchants in the c ~ t y In the city itself, there were palaces, temples
.
were a number of references to the Christian presence
and monasteries. 2 -rhere
international religious contacts and for trade with India and Persia during this
time at Anuradhapura.
An East Syrian Church ('Persian') cross of floriated design on a threestep base, remarkably similar to those found in India, was also seen in
~ n u r a d h a ~ u r a Abu
.'
Zayti Hassan, who was a geographer from Bassora
Basra (9 i 1 AD),
-
referred to Anuradhapura and Pollonarva, as centres for
religious rolerance irrespective (11 the Jews and other sects. In 1154 the Muslim
Geographer Idrisi wrote of the Sinhalese King presiding Aghna, among whose
Marco 1'010 quotes that Ahulfeda, t i l e historian, says the people were East Syrian Christians . Sir
H Yule the scholar says that this passagc shows some indications to point to the connection o f the
I.
:
Islands Christiar~irywith Synan Chrlstla~isand Abyssinian church.
The Rook ol'Sir Marco P i ~ l oVol2,pi; 101-402.
3.
The Mahavira monaster). whlch had bccn tbunded in the third century B.C. b e m e the center for
l'hcravada Buddhism in CcylonThere were also lakes and gardens, hospitals, cemeteries, markets
and suburbs for workers
lr was in addition an important international center with widespread
rclatioos: in lradc with Grcecc and I'crsia, India and Burma. There were art forms related with
Huddhism ;md Christian~t?at Jam. i'clebes, Tonking and Thailand Burma,. India, Cambodia, Siam
and C'hlna.
4
1:ur example at Kottaya~n.licrala. S InJla, dated l o the eighth century and to those from the period
fioirl the sixth to tenth crntbi~es,foiul:!
In Mosul, Persia, Chang-an, China and i n Tibet and Armenia.
I'lalc ?
ministers were four representing each of the major religious communities,
Buddhist. Christian, Muslim and ~ewish.'There are many historians who
testify to the Christian presence in Ceylon.
* It
is most probable that as in
southern India :d that time, the thought and practice of churches in Taprobane
were almost wholly dependent on the traditions and texts of the Persian
~ h u r c hPresence
.~
of Eastern Christianity in Burma - Siam - Annam
References to early Christianity in Southeast Asia, in Burma, Thailand,
the kingdoms of the CambodidVietnam peninsula, Java and the Philippines
-
are even less verifiable The traders from Persia, China and India were very
active in South East Asia during this period and we cannot rule out the
possibilities of some Christcan presence among them.
4
Burma was temporarily conquered by the Mongol armies of Kublai
Khan in 1277AD and 1283 AD. as vividly described by Marco Polo, and the city
of Pegu northeast of present-day Iiangoon was sometimes referred to, late in
the fifteenth century as a Christian centre. A few years later another traveller,
Louis of Varthema claimed that he found a thousand Christians in the service
. ~ were Indians and west Asians in Tenasserim, in
of the king in ~ e g uThere
Charnpa and Tonking since the fourth century. There is evidence to show that
Christians were present irl Siam from the 1 l'h to the 15Ih centuries. Moffett
mentions the presence of Christians in Siam in the 6" century while referring
to the travelling companions of Varthema based on ancient documents.
H I S (Varthzma's) ~iavellingcompanions, the Nestorian merchants, were
from the capital of Siam (Sornau), he says. Two northern Thai kingdoms,
~
--
I.
John , i l i i r o ~ 9..1
2.
Desilv;!. H ~ s l n v 43. 46.86
~
: ('udi-in~ronCeylon. 48 :
Arasaratnam,Ceylon, 52
: Q u e r c ('hrisrcanin 133, 137.1,44 : Butler. lconugruphy , 83-9Sf :Somaratne , PrePortugese, 144-155
3.
Harve). Hurma, 48
4.
Phblip, Euphrates. I57
5.
M o f k t ~ Histury,
.
400
Changrnai and Sukhotai had become dependencies of the Mongol empire
in 1294 AD. About 1350AD a powerful new kingdom was founded further
south at Ahudaya just north of present day Bangokok. It welcomed traders
from China and Persia, some of them perhaps Nestorian, like those whom
Varthema met a hundred and fifty years later. But there is no record of
Christian churches there. I
In the Kyanzitha U n i n log4 AD, one fresco depicts the cross in the
midst of'eight peta!s of the lotus. I'he style is close to that found in west China
and is agreed to belong to the period eleventh to thirteenth centuries. A fresco
resembling the 'Last Supper' in the Kubyaukyi Temple at Myinkaba also
shows strong Christian influence in the composition and hairstyle of the
figures2
These are evidences of Christian artists at Anawrahta where Indian
Christians had previously ~ e t t i e dThe
. ~ presence of Christians in the kingdom
of Malea (North Burma) in the ninth century is recorded along with other
south Asia centres. It shoulci be remembered also that Marco Polo discovered
the East Syrian Christians arnong the Shans when the Mongol armies entered
Burma in 1152. Pegu in Burma was a trading centre on Arab trade routes until
the fifteenth century and ~ccordingto Cosmas there were Christians there in
the sixth century. lLlarco Polo in 1278 found East Syrian Christians in the
Chinese province of Yun-an which borders on Burma. According to Marco
Polo, Kublai Khan temporarily conquered Burma in 1277 and 1283'
I.
Moffett. Hisiory, 46l.quoted from Schcffer. Lrs Voyuges de Ludovic de Varrhema (1502-1508 AD)
: Western historians often refers Eas~Syrian Christians as Nestorians inadverantaly. I t is to be noted that
East S)rlan Church was divided into two 8s a result ofthe Nestorian Controversy.
3.
Win, Biii-nirir. ! I
4
Vine, C ' l ~ ~ ~ r , , i1>7
~w.~,
j
Marco I'olo tc!Is th,: s ~ o r yof Ltiii,,ii:<, di Vtirtlicirra, a L!o!ognesc, while traveling in Southeast Asia in
1503 or I501 ;AD nict in Uenga! iunrc !:>st Syrlail Church merchants from Ayutia(Siam). They later
contacted him at Pegu \+herethrrc wcrz some ' hundreds o f Christian in the King's service.
: Cordier. Cnlhv. V o l !. 124
: \!nard L q l I I ?
.
: Colles P a d r . 4 :I21 quoted from W m g Gung
Nankai, 1-135, 99-104
East Syrian Christun presence in Tibet
Towards the end of the eighth century, the East Syrian Church Patriarch
Mar Timothy-I (779-823 AD) in his letter to the Monks of Mar Maron
concerning the addition of the formula Cruczfucus es pro nobis (Crucified for
us) to the trisagion wrote, 'And also in the countries of Babylon of Persia, and
Assyria, and in all the countries of the sun rise, that is to say
-
among the
Indians, the Chinese. the Tibetans. the Turks, and in all the provinces under the
jurisdiction of this Patriarchal see. there is no addition of Crucifiwus es
pronobis
'.
In another of hi.. letter, Patriarch Timothy mentioned that he was
about to consecrate a metropolitan for ~ i b e t . 'According to A.S.Atiya, the
existence ot' a relic of East Syrian Christianity in Tibet is the survival of its
ritual in a debased fbrm in the Lamaism of Tibet. The striking resemblances
with Lamaist Monasticisnl. the use of holy water, incense and vestments of a
similar character to East Syr~anChurch practices, must be traced to the days of
the East Syrian Church missionary in the high middle ages.
Malaya Peninsula references to Episcopal See
By the end of the iifteenth century there were many references to
Persian merchants at Malacc~.This is the ancient port near Trang, probably at
present day Kedah,
:I
major port of the Peninsula. Indian and Persian traders
were active there frorn the third century and by the thirteenth century it was the
most important Malaya trading centre for both Arabs and Persians. Other
maritime centres for Persian trade are now known on both the west and the
east coasts ofthe Malay Peninsula.
-.
I.
Mingana, t a r l y Spreiij /Cenlriill. 466
2.
Atya,
('hr:ilianiri.
20;
3.
The scvcnlh century Huddhist ptlgr~rnI - h n g )net in Kcdah a Hu, and this term most oflen reCers to
Iranian or Sogdiarl merchants or monks.
4.
By the end < , fthe fifteenth cenlur! thsre are many references to Persian merchants at Malacca, and also
Christian Armenians Tome Pircs for example records (1512 AD), the presence in Malacca of Turkish
and h i e n t a n tratles people who were of Chrirtian birth.
Conesao. 7 ; m e fires. Vol.1, 22
:
The Malaya Peninsula also offers a number of records which amplify
the brief references to Episcopal sees like Kalah. According to the East Syrian
Church ecclesiastical texts, lshoyab 111, the East Syrian Church Patriarch (650660 AD), refers in a letter to the interruption of Episcopal succession in 'the
India that extends.. t o the country which is called ~ a l a h ' . ' In the early 171h
century, a small. subterranean building was discovered, identified as a preRoman Catholic hermitage or oratory, and having a copper cross set on a
marble square. *
The evidence for Christian community at Dabag (Java - South Sumatra)
The evidence for Christian presence at Dabag comes from an Arabic
work of the Annenian Ahu Salih. the traveller of the 7~ century who found
East Syrian Churches, one named .4jer Our Lady at Fansur.
In the seventh
century, there were man) centres of the East Syrian Christian activities in
Central, East. and South-East Asia. Palembang and Jambi, which were also
flourishing centres of Buddhist activity. There were Persian merchants and
missionaries of Syrian Christianity who were prominent in this period. There
was an East Syrian Church metropolitan at Dabag, which was ranked fifteenth
within the
Patriarch's jurisdiction. Important evidences for this includes the
references by Abdisho (13 18AD) in his Rules of Ecclesiastical Judgements to
the Metropolitan of the isles of the sea.... Dabag, Sin and Masin. 5
I
2.
Exhaustic ~ l u d yof early Arabic texts. Kalah has been located on the coast of west Malaya north of the
island ol'Langkaw~,where there havc been accounts of East Syrian Church Christians from 650.
: Colless trade. M i s s i o n a ~ Vol
, 2. 105
I t was rrportcd by Eredia. a Port<igucsechronicler, although here again the cross itselfhas been lost
Dauvillieri . 'Les pravlnccs chi!ldceiiss de I cxtcrieur au Moyen Age', 315.
3.
Fansur has now been idzntified w~lltBaroes ( I . <Uarus) in west Sumatra near the port of Sibolga. Much
later Abu Salih tells us of similar ,:hurches he visited there.
: Muskens. /rid-onesio, 38.
: 4bii Salih, Egypt. 300.
:
Hambye, Documenration. 97-101
4
Hall, Suurh i a s r Aszu. J8
5
Dauvill~erJ
Les prov~nceschaldeencs de I exterleur au Moyen Age', 315 Quoted in John History, 97
Giovanni de Marignolli of Florence, visited Java on his return from
China in
( 1 347AD). and reported finding Christians at Majapahit, East Java,
and at Palembang, south sumatrat Of the three bishops ordained by the
Patriarch Elias - V ( I 503AD), and whom he sent to 'India, and the isles of the
sea between Dabag. Sin ( i e . China) and Masin (i.e. India)', one seems to have
had responsibility fix Dabag (Strivi,jaya) and was termed metropolitan by
some
historian^.^
It is reported that there are many such appointments
recorded, and believed that the bishops both reached and worked in the areas
designated, which fit in with other fragments of evidence.
According to the writings of Chou Ch'u-fei, Marco Polo, and Tome
Pries Lambri. the northern tip of Sumatra was a prominent centre of Persian
and Chinese trade by at ieast the twelth century. Once again the evidence
suggests that Persian Christians were active here.4 Sources so far available,
therefore suggest that the churches of Sumatra and Java, like those of Ceylon,
Burma, Siam and the Malay Peninsula at that time grew from the work and
witness of resident foreign traders such as Persian, Arab, and Indian, who were
sometimes assisted by visiting missionaries, but often having their own clergy.
They were sometimes closely associated with, and always dependent
upon, the tavour of the rulers of each territory, yet maintained at least
occasional correspondence with the Patriarch at Seleucia-Ctesiphon. In these
respects their experience was closely similar to that of the Indian churches and
there is little doubt that wiih them the East Syrian Christians in south east Asia
drew the Syriac scriptures and liturgies. and the writings of such Eastern
fathers as Tatian, Ephrem. Aphrahat, Barsumas, Mar Babai, Barhebraeus and
Abdishu.
I.
Colless, Paders, Vol.lll.7
2
Colless, Poders, Vo1.111.6
3.
John, Hislorv. 98
4.
Colless,
?rodeis, Vol.llI.3
Further research is needed in order to fill out this incomplete picture of
Christian communities in the region. In particular the remains in Ceylon and
Burma, and the witness of travelers for Siam and Java, offer tantalizing
glimpses of Christian presence, which take the story beyond mere speculation.
We cannot yet estimate, however, how many communities in the region
maintained Christian practice, nor for what periods did these churches of
which we know exist. Archeo!ogical, epigraphical and textual research, which
might amplify this history, has barely begun.
The Missionary Activities At North - East Asia
From China Christianity came to East Asia which included Korea and
the ancient kingdoms of Koguryo. Paekche and Silla. They had been
increasingly influenced by Chinese culture from the third century onwards and
received Buddhism from there in the fourth century. In the fifth and sixth
century Paekche and Silla were instrumental in introducing these influences in
creative Korean forms to the emerging Japanese state.' By the seventh century
a flow of teachers, students, novices and monks from Japan to China and back,
often following long periods of study, brought back books and knowledge
from China's diverse religious and political traditions.' The trade routes of the
'Silk Road' are also known to have reached Korea, Japan and Russia by this
time. Against this background it is from China, in particular from Chang-an
during the Tang Dynasty, that Christianity also first came to Korea and Japan.
I.
:
2
Silla's foreign trade had lnrreased steadily in the sixth and seventh centuries, the bulk of it being
with China. By then also Buddhist monks often studicd in China, to return laden with books. Many
scholars and officials obtalncd their education in China, and Silla adopted Chinese language
institutions, and Confucl;~o:rcholarship. These trends continued in the United Silla Kingdom of
eighrh century, which inc!uded Koguryo and Paekche, with Buddhism becoming the predominant
religion. Intercourse berween Japan and Korea had grown rapidly from the fourth century with
Korean exports far out\rc~ghingimports in both trade and in the flow of cultural artifacts and
~nflucnce.Entire comrn~~nities
of Koreans settled then in Japan, bringing literary, artistic and
rechnical skills
Hong Poekche 2-4.
-'ovel, Korean Impocl.
Samson, Hcstori
59. 1 1 i
T h e evidence of a n c i e n t East S y r i a n C o m m u n i t y in Korea
Evidence has been fhund in the Korean Chronicles Samguk Yusa and
Samguksa, for the presence of East Syrian Christianity during the united Silla
Dynasty (661-9:15).' The East Syrian Church missionaries enjoyed full
acceptance from the Khans of the Mongol Empire from 1236AD throughout
their territories, which enabled to open to the peninsula. In the fourteenth
century, when the Koryo state remained under Mongol control, Koryo crown
princes were held hostage in Khanbaliq and often forced to marry Mongol
princesses, who were East Syrian ~ h r i s t i a n s . ~
Prof: P.Y. Saeki mentions the remains of a Christian community in the
late tenth or early eleventh centur! A D which was discovered (1927AD) near
An-shan on the Liaotung Peninsula. In a large tomb, clay crosses had been
placed at the head of seven bodies. showing conclusively the existence of a
strong Christian community in the area. The Sung Chinese coins were also
found in the grave dated between 998-1006AD. This area was formerly under
the rule of Koguryo, north of the present Korean border. In the early twelfth
century a number of East Syrian Christian families are known to have
immigrated to I.iaoyang, on the Liaotung Peninsula, from Titao and Lintao
(west of ~ i a n ) . '
With regard to Korea there are differences of opinion mong the
historians as to the time when Christianity came to Korea. Historians like
Yoon Tae and John England find evidences in Korean Chronicles for the
presence of East Syrian Christianity during the Silla and Koryo dynasties, in
the seventh to the ninth centuries. According to S.H. Moffett,
The question remains, was Ansharl in Korea or Manchuria at the beginning
of the tenth centurq ? In the seventh century the Liaotung Peninsula was
Korean. But by about 1000. the apparent date of the burial, the Korean
I
On Y a o ~ r H ~ S I O'242-290
~L
2.
Grouseti Rene. 3O!lt: 706
3.
Saekl . l l n c u m s n l ~ 440
:
Grai
,
Religion, 122
: Gordon, DiscoveriesV (1): 1-39
border had been pushed south to the Yalu, and a Manchurian tribe, the liao (or
Chitan I,~ao),had taken that part of the north east from the Chinese Sung
emperor. All we can say with certainty, therefore, is that as early as 1000
there were Nestorian Christians in what had not long before been Korean
territory ' '
Other materlal remains which were discovered and identified as East Syrian
Christian relics aid are now held in the Christian Museum of Soongsil
University. Seoul !n Kqung Ju. capital of the United Silla Dynasty (661935AD).They include a stone cross. a statue of the Virgin Mary, number of
seals, and crystal chalices2.
In the Korean territory at Kyungju, the ancient capital of unified Korea,
the historian Kim Yang-Sun discovered what appears to be a stone cross used
by Buddhist monks at Pusoksa, Korea's most famous temple, as a charm to aid
in child birth. It is now kept in the Christian museum of Soomgsil University
in Seoul. Moffett says that there is no way to date it or even to determine
whether it is indeed an ancient Christian cross. It is possible that Christianity
existed in Korea at least from the tenth century. There are the representations
of a flabellum and the offering of incense in a form that echoes liturgical
practice of the East Syrian Christian rather than in Buddhist ceremony.3 In the
southwest of Korea (formerly Bagje or Paekche) a cave has been discovered
which is patterned as a Syrian cave-church. Inside, sixteen stone plaques on
the walls reflect Syrian C'hristian scenes rather than Korean or Buddhist
images.4
2
:
3.
4.
Korcan ('hristian htuscum 31 Soongsil i!n~vrrsity Seoul. Soongsil University. 1988,90f
Also in this museum are a number of hrunze mirrors engraved with symbols of the fish and the
grapcvrnr, norably Christian symbols. from the tenth to the fourteenth centuries. The grotto shrine of
Sokkaram, or1 the summit of Mount l u h m above Pulguk-sa Temple (near Kyung Ju), includes
among the figures carved in relief, two of women, one with a flagon, and the other, who is crowned,
presenting a cup to a worshippcr in a mariner unknown to Buddhism.
Gordon , Discoveries ,l7ff
.
Holdcrdli , In ro.41i 80
: But an accurate dating for these has not hcen made. Much research is still to be done on other sources.
Although the evidence so far assembled for southeast or northeast Asia
is in some cases more fragmentary than for central or south Asian localities, or
draws on traditiona! rather than 'scholarly' sources, the items and forms of the
evidence available are too numerous and varied to be easily discounted. They
demonstrate that the Christian movement, through the far-extended and diverse
mission of the E:ast Syrian Church. was known in most lands of the southeast
and northeast regions by the eighth century, whatever the duration or strength
of this presence might have been in particular localities. In some areas the
evidence suggests that it was to continue until the sixteenth century, when the
members of the Roman Catholic orders arrived.
The Christian Church in Japan
There are several historians, like P.Y.Saeki, who claim that Christianity
first came to Japan and Korea from China during the T'ang period. According
to Saeki, the East Syrian Christians had no small share in the creation of the
golden age of China and through China these same western influences passed
on to Japan He argues that the Japanese were consciously or unconsciously,
directly or indirectly, much ~nfluencedby the East Syrian Christians and
received Christian thought
111 Chinese
garb during T'ang period'.
It was not until the invasion of Japan by Kublai Khan (1268-1281 AD)
that Japan began to assert her spiritual and material independence.
John
England seems to suggest that Christianity came to Japan by the end of the
sixth or the beginning of the seventh century. He writes, 'regarding Japan, the
Seventeen Articr'es of injunction o f the Regent Prince Shotoku (574-622AD)
apparently include a grant 1.0 the Nestorians (East Syrian Christians) of 'full
liberty and personal rights'. Festivals. which have persisted over the centuries,
are also cited for their Christian references. and incised crosses and tombs have
been found in the north west Japan from the Nara or early Heian periods
(seventh to eleventh centuries).
'
~
I~
Sarki, .l~onumeni.112
2
Ihid, 62
:
Aprem. ,llissions. 77.
Young China ,19.
214
The Christian Community at Nara and Kyoto
Reconstructing the story of Christian presence in these cities of central
Japan, there are records, from the seventh century of churches at Nara and
Kadona near Kyoto. Nara was from 710-794 the imperial capital of a
centralized, bureaucratic state on the Chinese model, although Shotoku's
political reforms preceded this in the 7th century, when many of his religious
and social foundations were already sited at Nara. From 794, Kyoto became the
capital until 1598. Nara (and later Kyoto) was also the eastern terminus for the
'Silk Road' trade routes across Asia, and extensive collections of artifacts from
the west, the central and east Asia are still held in such repositories as the
Shoso-in Museurn and the Horyu-ji (Temple).
There are also carvings from the seventh century of the Maitreya (the
Coming Buddha), which have striking similarities to the Dunhuang painting of
'Le Bon Pasteur' (and also to Orthodox icons of the sixth and seventh
centuries.) In addition, the old temple of Horyu-ji at Nara had two beams,
dating from the late seventh century, now held in Tokyo Museum, which have
crosses and verses inscribed in a language closely similar to Syriac.
There is a ninth century manuscript entitled The Lord of the Universe
Discourse on Alrns giving at Nishi-llonganji in ~ ~ o t o .It' is not known how
the document came to Nishi Hongan-ji, whether through Kobo Daishi or
through the activity of the Christian teachers. It has however been valued and
carefully preserved in Kyoro ii)r almost twelve centuries. 2
Imper~alenvoys to the Tang court were no longer sent after 894AD and
little evidence is available ibr Christian activity in the following Heian period.
It is likely that Christian cc:mmunities in Japan, at the eastern extremity of
1.
The Lord ol rhe Unrver,e's Discoiirse on :lim.s-y~vmg, is based on the Sermon on the Mount and other
Matthacan passages. This is one ofthe A-lo-pen documents frum Dunhuang. Kobo Daishi, founder of
this Shingon temple is known tu have visited Chang-an in China, where Nestorian Christians were
active, prior to 806
2
Stewart. M,.s.sionuv I<,irrrprrsei . 88
communications with Persia, were particularly vulnerable to the disruptions in
trade and civil life which periodically overwhelmed the peoples and nations
through which the .Silk Koad' as in China, passed. It seems, however, that at
least for a period, Christian communities in Japan, received imperial approval,
and that thelr acthities included the works of medicine, social service and the
arts. Though the evidences of the presence of the early Syrian Christianity in
Japan before the coming of the \\eslern missionaries, are fragmentary and in
several cases not convincing, the possibility of the Christian influence in Japan
through Chlna needs to be seriously considered. The same could also be true
of Korea.
Conclusion
The evidences of the East Syrian Christian presence in different parts of the
South East and East Asia are very scanty and fragmentary. But there are
sufficient evidences to show that Christianity was present in a number of
countries in South East and East Asia. There is no doubt about Christian
presence in Ceylon, Burma, Tibet, Indonesia and Korea before the arrival of
the western missionaries. We do not know the number of Christians in these
various countries. It coultl probably be very small. Assemani says that in the
thirteenth century, there were twenty-five Nestorian metropolitan provinces,
with an average of eight to ten Episcopal sees for each province, thus totally
about 200 to 250 bishoprics. Some of these bishoprics were in the South East
and East .4sia, South-East.Asia, North-East Asia and South Asia.
The coincidence of the opening of trade routes into further Asia with the
ascendancy of the East Syrian church, offered a ready outlet for missionary
effort. The East Syrian. Christians, especially Persian, Indian and Chinese
missionaries and trader:;. who ,were strongly influenced by missionary
motivation, seized this opportunity in different parts of Asia before the arrival
of the western missionaries.